Islamabad: A Pakistani anti-corruption court indicted former President Asif Ali Zardari on Monday in Park Lane and Thatta water supply cases. Zardari (63), co-chairman of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), said in court that he was innocent.
During the hearing, the court indicted 19 other accused in the Park Lane case and 15 others in the Thatta water supply case. The court had last week indicted Zardari and his sister Faryal Thalpar in a major money laundering case. In the Park Lane case, Zardari and his son Bilawal Bhutto are accused of buying 2460 canals of land in Islamabad through middlemen at very cheap prices.
In the Thatta water supply case, a private contractor was illegally contracted for the project. In the money laundering case, the former president and other accused used fake accounts for allegedly money laundering of wrongfully acquired property. The court rejected Zardari’s plea to be acquitted in all three cases.
The husband of Benazir Bhutto, the country’s first female Prime Minister, was arrested by the National Accountability Bureau last year and examined for months and was released in December on medical grounds.
