President Asif Zardari of Pakistan is a billionaire with a vast global empire built on property and investments, the country's Supreme Court has heard.
His fortune was allegedly accumulated during his late wife Benazir Bhutto’s two terms of government when he became known as “Mr Ten Per Cent”. It was the subject of a series of corruption cases until they were dropped under an amnesty to allow the late Miss Bhutto and her supporters to return to Pakistan.
The Supreme Court in Islamabad is now due to rule on whether the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO), under which corruption and murder cases against more than 8,000 politicians, civil servants and other public figures were dropped, is unconstitutional.
If it does, Pakistan will be plunged into a new political crisis with Mr Zardari and some of his leading supporters facing corruption allegations they believed were behind them.
A glimpse of what those cases might look like if they come to court was offered in the court when the government’s National Accountability Bureau claimed in written testimony on Monday that Mr Zardari owned homes and estates throughout the world, including Britain, where he paid £4.35 million for an estate in 1995 which was dubbed by critics as his “Surrey Palace”.
Neighbours at the time claimed he had built his own private polo ground on the 350-acre estate and recreated the local village pub in one of its suites.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment