Bhutto 'to escape' Pakistan corruption charges

Corruption charges against former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto have been dropped, raising speculation she is moving closer to a power sharing deal with President Musharraf.

A meeting in Islamabad chaired by Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz agreed “in principle” to quash the old cases, government ministers said today.

“There was a consensus of opinion that there will be no harm in taking back the cases against Benazir,” Railways Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmad said.

Ms Bhutto has announced she will return to Pakistan later this month and has been involved in talks with President Musharraf over a possible power-sharing agreement.

Among her demands has been for long-standing fraud cases against her and other politicians to be dropped.

She has been charged in Pakistan with illegally amassing properties and bank accounts overseas while in power.

She was also convicted of money laundering in Switzerland in July 2003 and ordered her to pay £5.5 million to the Pakistani government. The conviction was automatically thrown out when she contested it, but the case is still under investigation.

A senior government official said that negotiations between her and the president’s aides had resumed on Tuesday in London but Bhutto’s party did not confirm it.

Hassan Bukhari, an adviser to Ms Bhutto in London, said the news she would be granted an amnesty in Pakistan was leaked from a government minister, but he called it disinformation aimed at damaging her party reputation.

“I can’t confirm it,” he said.

The move comes as President Musharraf prepares to seek election to a new five-year term on Saturday.

Ruling party officials, including Rashid, have been urging Ms Bhutto’s party not to join other opposition parties in a protest boycott of the vote..

She Bhutto served twice as the democratically elected leader between 1988 and 1996 – the first female prime minister in the Muslim world – but both governments fell amid allegations of corruption and misrule.