ISLAMABAD: An accountability court on Saturday acquitted former president and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Co-Chairman Asif Ali Zardari of all charges in a reference related to alleged illegal assets in Pakistan and abroad.
According to reports, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) failed to provide any evidence or witnesses in this regard.
In the reference, Zardari and his wife, the late former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, had been accused of acquiring assets through illegal means.
The reference was filed before an accountability court in 2001 and was closed in 2007 under the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO), issued by the government of former military strongman General Pervez Musharraf.
The Supreme Court, in its verdict in the NRO case on December 2009, had ordered the revival of cases closed under the ordinance. By then, however, Zardari had been sworn in as president and therefore enjoyed immunity under Article 248 of the Constitution.
NAB re-opened the assets reference in April 2015 as Zardari had completed his term in office. The former president was acquitted in five of the six references after a re-trial before the accountability court.
Zardari has faced a total of six corruption references; apart from the assets reference, the former president was also implicated in the SGS, Cotecna, Polo Ground, Ursus Tractors and ARY Gold corruption references.
