Islamabad's military dictatorship found a new life for its campaign against Benazir Bhutto a few weeks ago. This followed a Swiss magistrate’s verdict implicating the lady in a money laundering case, related to the awarding of customs inspection contracts to Swiss firms.The magistrate’s finding is the latest twist to allegations made Bhutto’s rivals as far back as rivals in 1996. The finding puts the cart before the horse. A crime has yet to be established in Pakistan. The issue of money being laundered through Swiss banks can arise only after a crime is proven.The allegations against Bhutto are regularly repeated, like a slow drip poison. She was tried on the charges in the 1990s in Pakistan. That sentence was set aside when dramatic audio-tape evidence proved that it was the government, in fact, that was attempting to influence the judges.The principle of double jeopardy says a person cannot be tried for the same offence twice. Bhutto is facing triple jeopardy. She is being retried in Pakistan for the same offence. If the Swiss magistrate has his way, she will be tried a third time in Switzerland.Her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, is in worse situation. He faces triple jeopardy from behind prison walls.Perhaps the celebrity of the Bhutto name was hard to resist for the Swiss magistrate, on his final day in office. Or perhaps he was convinced by Bhutto’s opponents.Successive governments in Islamabad have reportedly spent millions of dollars hiring lawyers, investigators, wire-pullers, agents, detectives and sending teams to several countries to dig up dirt on Bhutto. They have failed to find a smoking gun.The lawyer managing the disputed Swiss accounts has exonerated Bhutto. The attempt to tie the money to her through the purchase of an expensive piece of jewellery is unconvincing. There are affidavits proving otherwise.According to the Swiss magistrate, a two per cent commission was paid by SGS, the Swiss firm, to a Swiss lawyer. Two per cent commission is recognised internationally as consultancy fee. An amount under 10 per cent fails to fall into the definition of ‘‘kickback’’ or ‘‘bribe’’.More important, none of the disputed accounts are Bhutto’s. As her lawyer said, the Swiss authorities admitted they ‘‘had no information which could be used against Mrs Bhutto personally and were not aware of any assets of Mrs Bhutto in Switzerland’’.The Pakistan People’s Party has called for release of correspondence between Islamabad and its Swiss lawyers relating to meetings with the magistrate. This will give the game away.Meanwhile, Islamabad’s anti-democracy factions are busy declaring this is ‘‘the last nail in Bhutto’s political career’’. Unfortunately for them, such predictions have been made before.That the Swiss finding comes on the heels of General Pervez Musharraf’s emergence as a key ally of the West raises eyebrows. The unjust treatment of the Islamic world’s first woman prime minister is demonstrated in holding her husband hostage for seven years. That Bhutto was emerging as a voice of Muslim moderation was unacceptable to military hardliners.The attempts to pressurise a lady forced out of her country, banned from parliament, her husband snatched through imprisonment, her mother sick with Alzheimer’s make for high drama. The Bhutto story is woven with that of Pakistan’s attempt to end military rule and curb extremism.(The author is press spokesman to Benazir Bhutto, former prime minister of Pakistan)
