France asks for information on President Zardari

[Bhushan]

France asks for information on President Zardari

PARIS: A French judge probing a Pakistan bomb attack that killed 11 French engineers has asked Britain and Switzerland to provide whatever information they have on allegations of embezzlement by Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, legal sources here said Friday.

Judge Marc Trevidic made the request to help him advance his probe into claims the 11 were killed in May 2002 by Pakistani agents taking revenge after a new French government cancelled illegal commissions on an arms deal.

Last month families of victims filed suit in Paris against supporters of former French presidential candidate Edouard Balladur, who was prime minister at the time, alleging they benefited from the deal.

In 1995, newly elected president Jacques Chirac cancelled the pay-offs, which he believed had funded his rival’s campaign, angering Pakistani officers awaiting their share of the graft, according to a report commissioned by France’s state naval construction firm and leaked last June.

The families believe they were deceived by the French state and top ranking French and Pakistani political leaders, and that their loved ones were exposed and killed as a result of a sordid political funding scandal.

One leaked French report on the affair said that the commissions paid to Pakistani figures were ordered by Zardari, the widower of the assassinated former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

In all, 14 people were killed on May 8, 2002, when a suicide bomber attacked a bus carrying French naval engineers from their Karachi hotel to where they were working on the submarines sold to Pakistan in the suspect deal.

At first, officials in both countries blamed militants at war with the West for carrying out the attack, but French counter-terrorism officers have begun privately to accuse Pakistani spies of ordering it. —AFP

 

[Awesome]

Hahahaha, man this is embarrassing, but so expected. Some of his most famous corruption scandals involve the French.

I don't know who is laying claims on ISI privately, but Pakistan stood to lose from the attacks on the French engineers, not gain anything. That attack has been haunting Pakistanis till date since not only were French targeted in those but the NZ team was staying in the same hotel as well.

The Chinese engineers were targeted during those days as well. It was like whoever comes to help Pakistan was being targeted. It was commonly believed in military circles that India was behind all those attacks. The only party that stood to gain from Pakistan's losses.

The 11 French engineers died helping Pakistan, the allegation of killing them in revenge is absurd, Musharraf who was in charge fought hard to secure French assistance and has no allegation of payoffs against him. Zardari's payoff scandals are more to do with during his wife's time in the 90s, when he was put in charge by her to secure some French deals.