|
|
The Nawaz Sharif government of Pakistan Muslim League-N is contemplating reviving through the Swiss courts of the appeal graft cases against former president Asif Zardari of Pakistan People’s Party for the return of $60mn reportedly stashed away in Swiss banks.
Sources here say that the law ministry is engaged in discussions with a Geneva-based law firm, Python and Peter, and an Islamabad-based firm, Amhurst Brown, to revive cases against Zardari that Swiss authorities closed last year due to a time-bar.
The sources said the government’s legal minds are confident that the Swiss cases could be reopened following a Rawalpindi accountability court’s revival of cases that had been kept pending against Zardari because he enjoyed presidential immunity for five years.
“The appeal could be filed in the Swiss court of appeal shortly,” said a government official.
Currently, the two private law firms are reviewing “the judgments of the accountability courts in Rawalpindi acquitting the persons co-accused with Zardari in [what are known as the] SGS and Cotecna cases to firm up a future course of action,” he said.
However, Law Secretary Barrister Zafarullah Khan said: “Not in my knowledge,” in an SMS reply when asked if the government had decided to request the reopening of the SGS and Cotecna cases in Switzerland.
The minister for law and information, Senator Pervez Rashid, said: “We have decided on oath that we will not politicise any issue. We will go by the book and keep taking steps under the law. We will not try to persecute anybody or try to exonerate anybody”.
