No request from Pakistan to reopen cases: Swiss official
Zardari,
as ahead of state, Prosecutor-General Daniel Zappelli told a foreign news agency."I have not received any
request,” Zappelli said, commenting on news from Islamabad that Pakistan's anti-corruption agency would ask
the Swiss to revive the case.Zardari and his wife, assassinated former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, were
convicted by a Geneva court in 2003 of laundering $13 million linked to kickbacks, but that verdict was
overturned on appeal and Swiss judicial authorities said in August 2008 they had closed the file on the case.
Zappelli said that Pakistan's embassy in Switzerland had officially notified him in June 2008 of a decision by
Pakistan's prosecutor-general in April of that year to withdraw proceedings against Zardari.He said that
Pakistan's prosecutor-general had decided that the contracts at the heart of the kickbacks case had been
awarded in good faith."In Pakistan they decided that no crime had been committed," he said.Zappelli also noted
that Zardari and Bhutto had been sentenced by the High Court in Lahore in 1999, but in 2001 Pakistan's
Supreme Court had cancelled this verdict and sent it back to Lahore for a new decision. However, there had not
been a new trial in the nine years since then.A trial for money-laundering in Switzerland would have to be based
on the proceeds of criminal activity, but that would require proof that a crime had been committed, he said. In
any case under international law Zardari enjoyed immunity from prosecution as a head of state -- unless that state
itself lifts the immunity."Immunity is the key question," Zappelli said.a"We can't prosecute Mr Zardari while he has
immunity unless
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