give up on the people not on the country..we are ruled by the worst dacoit in the world..\
Zardari Character:
Political involvement in the first Bhutto Administration and first imprisonment
Zardari, Benazir Bhutto, and baby Bilawal in a state visit to Andrews Air Force Base in 1989
He generally stayed out of his wife's first administration, but he and his associates became tangled in corruption cases linked to the government.[26][27] He was largely blamed for the collapse of the Bhutto administration.[28]
After the dismissal of Bhutto's government in August 1990,[29] Benazir Bhutto and Zardari were prohibited from leaving the country by security forces, under the direction of the Pakistan Army.[30] During the interim government between August and October, caretaker Prime Minister Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi, a Bhutto rival, began investigations of corruption of the Bhutto administration.[31] Jatoi accused Zardari with using his wife's political position to further his business deals by charging a 10% commission to get permission for setting up any project or to receive loans.[31] He was tagged with the nickname Mr. Ten Percent.[19]
He was arrested on 10 October 1990 for charges relating to kidnapping and extortion.[29][32] The charges alleged an extortion scheme that involved tying a supposed bomb to a British businessman's leg.[19] The Bhutto family considered the indictment politically motivated and fabricated.[32] In the October 1990 elections, he was elected to the National Assembly while in jail.[33] Bhutto and the PPP staged a walkout from the inaugural session of National Assembly in protest of Zardari's incarceration.[33] He posted $20,000 bail but his release was blocked by a government ordinance that removed a court's power to release suspects in terrorist court.[28] The ordinance was later revoked and a special court acquitted him of bank fraud and conspiracy to murder political opponents.[28] He was freed in February 1993.[28] In March 1994, Zardari was acquitted of bank fraud charges.[34] All other corruption charges relating to Bhutto's first term were dropped or thrown out of the courts.[35]
Political involvement in the second Bhutto Administration
In April 1993, he became one of the 18 cabinet ministers in the caretaker government that succeeded Nawaz Sharif's first abridged premiership.[36] The caretaker government lasted until the July elections.[36] After Bhutto's election, he served as Bhutto's Investment Minister,[35][37] chief of the intelligence bureau,[35] and the head of the Federal Investigation Agency.[35] In February 1994, Benazir sent Zardari to meet Saddam Hussein in Iraq to deliver medicine in exchange for three detained Pakistanis arrested on the ambiguous Kuwait-Iraq border.[38] In April 1994, Zardari refuted allegations that he was wielding unregulated influence as a spouse and acting as "de-facto Prime Minister".[39][40] In March 1995, he was appointed chairman of the new Environment Protection Council.[41][42]
During the beginning of the second Bhutto Administration, a Bhutto family feud between Benazir and her mother, Nusrat Bhutto, unraveled over the political future of Murtaza Bhutto.[43] Benazir thanked Zardari for his support.[43] In September 1996, Murtaza and seven others died in a shootout with police in Karachi, while the city was undergoing a three-year civil war.[44][45] At Murtaza's funeral, Nusrat accused Benazir and Zardari of being responsible and vowed to pursue prosecution.[35][44] Ghinwa Bhutto, Murtaza's widow, also accused Zardari of being behind his killing.[35][46] President Farooq Leghari, who would dismiss the Bhutto government seven weeks after Murtaza's death, also suspected Benazir's and Zardari's involvement.[35] Several of Pakistan's leading newspapers alleged that Zardari wanted Murtaza out of the way because of Murtaza's activities as head of a breakaway faction of the PPP.[35]
In November 1996, Bhutto's government was dismissed by Leghari primarily because of corruption and Murtaza's death.[35] Zardari was arrested in Lahore while attempting to flee the country to Dubai.[35][45]
Jail and exile
[edit] New York Times report
A major report in January 1998 was published by The New York Times detailing Zardari's vast corruption and misuse of public funds.[47] The report discussed Zardari's $200 million kickbacks for a $4 billion contract with French military contractor–Dassault Aviation– in a deal that fell apart only when the Bhutto government was dismissed.[47] It contained details on a single payment of a $10 million kickback from a gold bullion dealer in return for a monopoly on gold imports.[47] It had information from Pakistani investigators that the Bhutto family had allegedly accrued more than $1.5 billion in illicit profits through kickbacks in virtually every sphere of government activity.[47] It also discussed Zardari's mid-1990s spending spree that involved millions of dollars for jewelry.[47] The arrangements made by the Bhutto family for their wealth relied on Western property companies, Western lawyers, and a network of Western friends.[47] The report described how Zardari had arranged secret contracts, painstaking negotiations, and removal of resistant intermediaries.[47]
As a result of the reports, Citibank ran into further private-banking trouble in Pakistan.[48] Zardari's financial history was one case study in a 1999 US Senate report on various vulnerabilities in banking procedures.[49]
[edit] Second imprisonment and conviction
In March 1997, he was elected to the Senate while in a Karachi jail.[50][51] In December 1997, he was flown to Islamabad under tight security to take his oath.[50]
In July 1998, he was indicted for corruption in Pakistan after the Swiss government has handed over documents to Pakistani authorities relating to money laundering.[52] The Swiss government had also indicted him for money laundering.[52] At the same time in a separate case, he and 18 others were also indicted for conspiracy to murder Murtaza Bhutto.[53] After criminal prosecutions began, Citibank closed Zardari's account.[48]
In April 1999, Bhutto and Zardari were convicted for receiving indemnities from a Swiss goods inspection company that was hired to end corruption in collection of customs duties.[54] The couple received $8.6 million fines.[54][55] Both were also sentenced five years imprisonment but Bhutto could not be extradited back to Pakistan from her self-imposed exile.[54][55] He was already jailed awaiting trial on separate charges.[54][55] The evidence used against them was gathered by Swiss investigators and the Pakistani Bureau of Accountability.[54][56]
In May 1999, he was hospitalized after an alleged attempted suicide.[57] He claimed he suffered an attempted murder by police.[57]
In August 2003, a Swiss judge charged Bhutto and Zardari for money laundering and sentenced them 6-month imprisonments and fined $50,000.[58] In addition, they were required to return $11 million to the Pakistani government.[58] The conviction involved charges relating to kickbacks from two Swiss firms in exchange for customs fraud.[59] In France, Poland, and Switzerland the couple faced allegations relating to corruption.[60]
In November 2004, he was released on bail by court order.[61][62][63] However, a month later he was again unexpectedly arrested for failing to show up for a hearing on a murder case in Islamabad.[61][62][63] He was moved to house arrest in Karachi.[61][63] A day later, he was released on $5,000 bail.[61][62] His release, rearrest, and then release again was regarded as a sign of growing reconciliation between Musharraf's government and the PPP.[61][62] After his second release in late 2004, he left for exile overseas in Dubai.[19][64]
[edit] Exile and legal problems
He left to see Bhutto in Dubai and returned to Lahore in April 2005.[64][65][66] Police prevented him from holding rallies by escorting him from the airport to his home.[64][65][66] He criticized Musharraf's government but rumors of reconciliation between Musharraf and the PPP grew.[65][66] He went back to Dubai in May 2005.[67][68]
In June 2005, he suffered a heart attack and was a treated in United Arab Emirates.[67][68] A PPP spokesman stated he underwent angioplasty in the United States.[68] In September 2005, he did not show up for a Rawalpindi hearing on corruption charges and the court issued an arrest warrant.[68] His lawyers stated he could not come because he was recovering from treatment.[68] Following a request by the Rawalpindi court, Interpol issued a red notice in January 2006 against the couple which called on member nations to decide on the couple's extradition.[69][70]
When Bhutto declared in September 2007 her upcoming return to Pakistan, he was in New York City undergoing medical treatment.[71] After the October 2007 bombing in Karachi that tainted Bhutto's return, he accused Pakistani intelligence services of being behind the attacks and claimed "it was not done by militants".[72][73] He had not accompanied Bhutto in her return and had stayed behind in Dubai with his daughters.[73] Bhutto called for the removal of the chief investigator of the attacks because she claimed the chief investigator had been involved in Zardari's alleged prison torture in 1999.[74]
In November 2007, Musharraf installed emergency rule for six weeks,[75] under the pretense of rising Islamist militancy, a few days following Bhutto's departure for Dubai to meet with Zardari.[76][77] Immediately after the state of emergency, Bhutto returned to Pakistan while Zardari again stayed behind in Dubai.[76][78] The emergency rule was initiated right before the Supreme Court of Pakistan began to start deliberations on the legality of Musharraf's U.S.-backed proposal — National Reconciliation Ordinance — to drop corruption charges against Bhutto and Zardari in return for a joint Bhutto-Musharraf coalition to lead Pakistan.[76][77] Bhutto and Zardari sympathized with Musharraf on his feud with the Supreme Court, but simultaneously criticized the imposition of martial law.[76][77][78] Before the Supreme Court could issue a decision on the dismissal of corruption charges against Bhutto and Zardari, Musharraf replaced its members with his supporters.[76][77]
In the midst of his exile, Zardari faced several different legal problems. In Pakistan, Musharraf gave amnesty to Zardari's alleged offenses through the National Reconciliation Ordinance drafted in October 2007.[59] However, the ordinance was up against mounting public pressure and an uncompromising judiciary.[59] In addition the ordinance only dealt with charges up to 1999.[59] This left open the possibility of investigations into alleged involvement of about $2 million in illegal kickbacks to Saddam Hussein under the oil-for-food program discovered in October 2005.[59] If the ordinance was rescinded, he would have had to deal with charges relating to evading duties on an armored BMW, commissions from a Polish tractor manufacturer, and a kickback from a gold bullion dealer.[59] In Switzerland, Bhutto and Zardari appealed the 2003 Swiss conviction which required the case to be reopened in October 2007.[59] In Spain, a criminal investigation was opened for money laundering for the oil-for-food program because of illicit profits through Spanish firms.[59] In Britain, he was fighting a civil case against the Pakistani government for the profits of Surrey Palace through a liquidation sale.[59] He successfully used his medical diagnosis to postpone a verdict on his British manor trial.[79][80][81]
In exile, he shifted between homes in New York, London, and Dubai where his three children lived.[19]
On the night of 27 December 2007, he returned to Pakistan following Bhutto's assassination.[82]
And tit for tat politics:
Coalition government
He and Sharif agreed in the 9 March 2008 agreement, known as the Murree declaration, for the restoration of the judges by 30 April 2008.[105][106] The deadline was later extended to May 12.[105] He and Sharif held unsuccessful talks at London in May.[105][107] After the coalition failed to restore the judiciary, in mid-May PML-N withdrew from the government by pulling its ministers out of the cabinet.[105][106][107][108][109] The coalition regrouped again with the PML-N and proposed a constitutional amendment that would remove the power of the President to dismiss Parliament.[106][108][109] By late May, the coalition was set in a confrontation with Musharraf.[108][109][110] At the same time, the coalition government was successful in readmitting Pakistan to the Commonwealth.[111]
He and Sharif met in Lahore in June 2008 to discuss Musharraf's removal and the constitutional amendments, which the PML-N viewed as not going far enough to fulfill the Murree declaration.[106][112] He pushed back against impeachment calls because he claimed the coalition did not have the two-thirds majority in both legislative bodies — National Assmebly and Senate.[106][112] He was unwilling to restore the judiciary as divisions in the coalition grew and popular sentiment shifted towards Sharif.[113][114] The coalition criticized the government for barring Sharif from competing in the June by-elections.[113][114][115] Because of the impasses over Musharraf and the judiciary, the coalition could not address rising food shortages and spiraling inflation, which was the highest in 30 years.[106]
In August 2008, he relented and the coalition agreed on proceeding full-swing towards Musharraf's impeachment by drafting a charge-sheet against Musharraf.[116][117] The coalition charged him for high treason in the 1999 coup and the imposition of martial law.[116] He warned Musharraf against dismissing parliament and the coalition selected Gillani instead of Musharraf to represent Pakistan in the 2008 Beijing Olympics.[117][118] On 18 August, Musharraf resigned in order to avoid impeachment.[119][120][121][122] Although Zardari favored granting Musharraf immunity from prosecution, the coalition could not reach a united decision.[119][120][122] The coalition also could not reach a united stance on the future of the judiciary.[119][120][121][122]
