A Mail-Ordered Conviction Against Ms Bhutto
By Tarique Niazi
The South Tribune – Issue No 54, August
THE SWISS have served up the Pakistani military dictator by convicting his fiercest democratic challenger, Benazir Bhutto, to “advance the cause of Western civilization!”
Just when Gen. Pervez Musharraf was propping up his autocracy with a biped of corruption and coercion in the country, he was home-delivered this conviction as what GIs call MRE (Meal Ready to Eat)!
A Swiss judicial officer, Daniel Devaud, took five years (1998-2003) to finish his investigation into cooked-up charges that Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto had laundered $11 million that she allegedly received in kickbacks in exchange for awarding a contract to a Swiss firm. Officer Devaud announced his findings on his last day in office (July 31). The alleged conviction carries a suspended jail term of six months and a fine of $50,000.
In contrast, Gen. Musharraf’s corrupt ways of governance has of late cheated Pakistan of $1000 million in unauthorized appropriations and loan write-offs to the powerful business interests (respectively reported this past week by the Auditor-General of Pakistan and the country’s lending financial institutions). While Gen. Musharraf bought Ms Bhutto’s conviction for $18 million (of state money) that were dished out to junketeers garbed as “investigators,” fanned around the world, to dig up dirt on her, he has no one to have him account for his misappropriation of $1,000 million, let alone fund an $18 million investigation into his scam.
In the case of Ms Bhutto, a state expense of $18 million was argued to be “justified” to recover an amount of $11 million that Gen. Musharraf and his predecessors accused Ms Bhutto of receiving in kickbacks. In 1994, the Pakistani government contracted a Swiss firm, Societe Generale de Surveillance (more commonly known as SGS), to help the then Central Board of Revenue (CBR), an equivalent of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in the U.S., to improve collection of import duties. The SGS was reportedly hired for $137.492 million. After hiring the firm, collection of import duties in Pakistan climbed to an all-time high. In the process, big businesses that are always averse to paying their dues to the state cried foul.
Having failed to persuade Ms Bhutto to back off her collection drive, they launched themselves into a “Jihad” on her by scandalizing her that she and her husband had received kickbacks for the award of contract to SGS. Yet those who were partisan to truth knew all along that the Jihad funded by big businesses and a subsequent $18 million investigation against Ms Bhutto were all about “politics,” i.e., elimination of Ms Bhutto by scandalous scheming.
If they were not about politics, then can anyone try Gen. Musharraf for his corruption? Can anyone even dare call him corrupt? Early this year, he called his government clean of corruption. None believed it. Yet no one could dare dissent, either. Mr Irshad Haqqani of The Jang respectfully recorded in his newspaper column: “Clean or not, we shall judge your government when your back is turned” (Yet Amina Jilani, Ardeshir Cowasjee, and Ayaz Amir (AAA of establishment journalism) claim that the Pakistani press has regained the last frontier of freedom! There is no topic off limits to journalistic discourse {Ayaz Amir}.)
In the same breath, Gen. Musharraf accused Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif of stealing 1,000 billion (one trillion) rupees! Not an eyebrow was raised in the media to hold the accuser to account for his ignorantly outlandish claim! If, according to Gen. Musharraf, Prime Minister Sharif had swindled the country of a trillion rupees ($20 billion), Prime Minister Sharif had no right to have Ms Bhutto tried, convicted, and sentenced in April 1999 on charges of receiving $11 million in kickbacks. Nor had Gen. Musharraf any right to pursue her in foreign courts for a comparatively chump change of $11 million, when he can swallow more than $1,000 million without a belch having heard. It is not a question of moral equivalence between their alleged and unalleged cases of corruption. It is rather a question of fairness: Corrupt cannot judge the “corrupt,” just as sinners, according to Jesus, cannot stone the sinners!
Yet Ms Bhutto’s innocence was established every step of the way: On April 15, 1999, the Ehtasab Bench of Lahore High Court “sentenced” her to a jail term of five years and a fine of $8.6 million (in the same case in which the Swiss have now convicted her), after a deal was struck between the trial judge and the Chief of Ehtasab Bureau. Six months later, Ms Bhutto’s prosecutor, Chief of Ehtasab Bureau, found himself in jail for the same charges that he framed against Ms Bhutto: Corruption (Later, the Ehtasab’s jailed chief apologized to Ms Bhutto’s husband, Mr Asif Ali Zardari, for framing them up in false cases!).
Since October 1999, Gen. Musharraf and his National Accountability Bureau (NAB) have been running the “Ms Bhutto is corrupt” jingle for 18 consecutive months, only to see the Supreme Court of Pakistan upend their malafide campaign: On April 6, 2001, a full bench of six Supreme Court justices held that Ms Bhutto was the victim of a “biased” trial, and overturned the Ehtasab Bench’s conviction and sentencing of April 1999.
The motive behind Ms Bhutto’s trial was not to punish her alleged corruption, but to taint enough her name, both at home and abroad, to force her from politics. While at home, the judicial process was liberally tweaked into having the Ehtasab Benches deliver pre-recorded and pre-dated judgments to the liking of Ms Bhutto’s rivals in power (Pakistan’s top-seeded journalist-writer Mr M. Ziauddin broke the news of a pre-written, pre-dated judgment against Ms Bhutto duly signed by the presiding judge Qayyum, long before the conclusion of the trial itself.), similar efforts were mounted to manipulate the legal-judicial system of foreign courts, especially Swiss ones to get “guilty” verdict against Ms Bhutto.
Rulers’ efforts were further blessed by the mass ignorance in Pakistan of the Swiss legal-judicial system, where a judicial officer could be the investigator, prosecutor, and adjudicator all at once, as was the case with the Swiss judicial officer Daniel Devaud, who investigated into the “facts” of the case against Ms Bhutto. Facts were all manufactured in Pakistan by Ms Bhutto’s rivals in power and spoon-fed to Officer Devaud, who lapped them up without ever giving a chance to the victim who in the legalese was called “defendant,” that is Ms Bhutto. In a five-year investigation, Officer Devaud never summoned Ms Bhutto to her defense.
It was a one-street justice that was brewed together by the Pakistani and Swiss authorities to serve their respective malafide ends: The Pakistani authorities wanted a judicial murder of their rival to power, while the Swiss authorities, as a result of their judicial services that could lead to the political elimination of Ms Bhutto through judicial means, herded Swiss companies to the government’s trough of “sweetheart deals.” Over the past five years, Swiss have tripled (an increase of 300%) their business interests in the public sector! In all fairness, every Swiss should ask their government to list businesses transactions with the Pakistani government since 1998. There is no mild way to describe this behavior other than judicial prostitution for profits.
So, Officer Devaud was stirring the pot for his home-grown beneficiaries and the government of Pakistan was sweetening it with each of his stirs. Like an ambitious attorney who stakes his reputation on pursuing a big-name defendant, Officer Devaud took on this case with no less such ambitions of his own as well. Under fair judicial norms, his judicial profile did not fit this case. He was a judicial officer of a Canto, which is roughly the size of Tahli-Mori in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, but with language, customs, and ethnic identity of its own. Devaud’s equivalent in Tahli-Mori will be a revenue officer of a Tehsil (i.e., Tehsildar), who combines both executive and judicial – for revenue collection – power.
Could you imagine Tahli-Mori’s Tehsildar summoning up, say, Sardar Farooq Leghari, former president of Pakistan, for, say, defaulting on his land revenue? You may have found even my analogy offending enough to stop reading on. It is not a question of “legal equality” – all, tehsildars and presidents, are equal before law. It is a question of “legal competence.” A Tehsildar cannot “competently” judge a president. As a matter of fact, when Sardar Leghari, as sitting President, offered to record his statement with District Judge of Islamabad in an alleged land dispute, the judge recluse himself on the basis of his “legal competence.” Even Gen. Musharraf replaced a district judge with a high court judge to try Prime Minister Sharif for hijacking his plane in October, 1999, for “apparently” the same reason – “legal competence.” How could a Canto judge be legally competent to try, convict, and sentence Prime Minister of Pakistan? Because he is “white” and Prime Minister is “brown.”
Despite pervasive racism in the world, I hate to play defensive or offensive racism. But in the case of the Swiss authorities, their past is witness to their present. Ironically though, the Swiss have tried Ms Bhutto on charges of “money-laundering,” yet money-laundering Swiss banks continue to do roaring business all over the world. “The Swiss National Bank,” as Michael Hirsh reported in Newsweek of August 24, 1998, “laundered looted Nazi gold” (p.19). This gold was torn from the dentures of the dead victims of the Holocaust. The gold thus gleaned still fills the strong rooms of Swiss banks.
The Swiss National Bank, according to Hirsch, has been the chief financier to the Nazis. Although Swiss banks – United Bank of Switzerland, Credit Suisse, Swiss National Bank – are now being squeezed for a payout of $1.2 billion to Holocaust survivors, yet these banks are so unwilling to do this little, this late, that they had forged documents to show the survivors “dead” and claimants “fake.” This anomaly cannot miss on any South Asian whose foremothers and forefathers have suffered and strived against colonial racism.
Yet Officer Devaud held his circus of investigation for five years, flinging mud at Pakistan’s most distinguished leader, Ms Bhutto. With each bout of flinging, he would make a big splash in Pakistani media, a practice that plucked him out of obscurity and put him on the world map. His parasitic existence was sustained by his victim, whom he denied even the basics of rudimentary justice. Although he has been in correspondence with Ms Bhutto’s successive rivals in Islamabad for five years, Officer Devaud denied her access to the material evidence that incriminated her. On top of it, he demanded that she be indicted on the strength of the same evidence that has all along been kept from her, both by Officer Devaud and the authorities in Pakistan with whose complicity he convicted her.
This mutual secrecy on incriminating evidence against Ms Bhutto, between the Swiss and Pakistani authorities, led to reveal the most bizarre of documents that were entered as “material evidence” without the right to defense scrutiny. A case in point is the Registrar of Lahore High Court who traveled to Geneva to authenticate the validity of a 1000-page document released by Devaud’s office. According to the Ehtasab Bench’s instructions, the Registrar was supposed to accompany Ms Bhutto’s attorney, who was however stopped by the government from traveling. Still the Registrar continued his journey to Geneva. He had the 1000-page document, which was in Officer Devaud’s possession, photocopied and verified by Devaud.
Upon his return to Pakistan, he told the Ehtasab Bench that the copied document was a replica of the original. The court asked him if he knew the Swiss language. “Not a word,” he replied. Can you verify a 1000-page document written in Swiss that it matches the original without knowing a word of Swiss? Unless you are a Registrar in a court that has contract on the defendant with the power wielders of the country! As if it was not a joke enough, Officer Devaud asked Ms Bhutto in September 1998 to receive his indictment, built on many of such 1000-page documents, of hers without even raising an eyebrow.
This was an act of forcing Ms Bhutto into self-incrimination, plain and simple.
In the United States Constitution, there exists the Fifth Amendment that bars investigators, prosecutors, and judges from subjecting defendants to self-incrimination by force or by deceit (Hence, “leading” questions are inadmissible in courts to save defendants from the sophistry of legalese that could ensnare them in self-incrimination.). In the case of Ms Bhutto however, it was an open war in which all was fair. Let alone the legal niceties of defendant’s access to incriminating material evidence, Ms Bhutto was the target of a five-year Character-assassination at home and abroad.
All these years she was on media trial, just as she is now after Officer’s Devaud’s July 31, 2003 judgment (just read the editorials in the country’s top three newspapers, The Nation, The News, The Dawn, which had not a word to say on the merits of the case; all they said was asked Ms Bhutto to take a break from politics! You know who is burning with this desire to see her leave politics??). Ms Bhutto’s media assassination is an outcome of a sustained campaign by her political rivals who could not and cannot eliminate her by political means. The people of Pakistan, however, vindicated her innocence in election after election.
Editors at The Dawn (August 8, 2003) think that popular vindication is not worth their cent: “The fact that ….. the People’s Party remains the country’s largest party …. will again be cited by may as proof that corruption is not an issue where ordinary people are concerned. But this carries the disturbing implication that electoral popularity somehow provides a license for misuse of office and power, which is not an acceptable position.” It is not the people who elect the corrupt (remember April 30, 2002?), or elected leaders who wash themselves clean of corruption with popular vote. Instead, it is the corrupt legal-judicial system that allows itself abused by the powerful to brand people’s elected leaders as “corrupt.”
In an ideal legal-judicial system, it is the jury of the peers (of six or eight or ten) that sit in judgment on defendants even in capital offenses, and their verdict alone determines the fate of the defendants. In Pakistan, do you think a jury of 35 million adults is not enough to vindicate a leader of her rivals’ politically motivated allegations of corruption? Do you think we need a one man-judge (in five years of Ms Bhutto’s judicial and political lynching, there was not a single woman-judge who was part of the Ehtasab Bench, the Supreme Court of Pakistan, or investigation in Geneva) – Justice Qayyum, Justice Saifur Rehman, Justice Gen. Musharraf, Justice Devaud) to hold Ms Bhutto “guilty as charged?”
In the end, I ask every Pakistani, regardless of having been Ms Bhutto’s defender or detractor, to name a single self-respecting country whose government is accomplice with foreign governments to have its leaders tried, convicted, and sentenced to settle its political scores. Take the case of our neighboring India. Have you ever heard any of the sitting BJP leaders asking the Swiss to try, convict, and sentence past and present Congress leaders in an alleged Bofors scandal? It is Gen. Musharraf that wants Britain to try Altaf Hussein, the Saudis to keep Nawaz Sharif in detention, the Swiss to try, convict, and sentence Ms Bhutto, and the U.S. to deport Chief Minister Abdullah Shah. If Pakistan must go down this path, then it will not be just political rivals who will be done in. The implications of such behavior are far more alarming. Just think about the following:
First, not too long ago, India has asked Pakistan to hand over 22 of its wanted “criminals.” Thanks to the war on terror, Gen. Musharraf has momentarily escaped his obligations, although at one point he was willing to sacrifice a few Sikhs to ease off pressure on him. But now Pakistan’s utility in the war on terror is reaching its limits, and the Indian demand still stands unmet. India may not be able to coerce Pakistan to give up its wanted, but it does know the name and street address of our patrons who can. If we can help foreigners with the trial, conviction, and sentencing of our “political rivals,” why can’t we help them with those who are worldwide believed “terrorists?”
Second, Bangladesh and India both have asked Pakistan to hand them over “war criminals” of 1971. Although many of those among general-officers who were named “war criminals” have already departed, the demand may trickle down to still surviving lower-ranking officers. Again, our willingness to sacrifice “political criminals” at the alter of foreign governments will come in handy for such demanders to hammer us with their demand for “war criminals.”
Third, Pakistan’s Dr. A. Q. Khan is looming large in the world’s proliferation concerns. He is in the news for his reported and alleged links to the Iraqis, Iranians, Libyans, and North Koreans, who allegedly have long been in the business of bomb-making. If someone strong-arms Pakistan to give up Dr. Khan for interrogation or just share his papers, work, etc., can today’s rulers say no, while they keep giggling about the trials and convictions of their rivals in foreign courts?
It is about time we rid ourselves of myopia and did some long-term thinking. Corruption is indeed Pakistan’s number one problem. But what is at the source of corruption?: Absolute power that corrupts absolutely. Since October 1999, Pakistan and all its institutions, including the superior judiciary, have been at the mercy of a man with absolute power. As long as we cannot stanch the ultimate source of corruption by bringing an end to dictatorship, for which Ms Bhutto is leading the democratic Pakistan, we cannot sweep clean Pakistan of corruption. If Gen. Musharraf is not willing to give up on his dictatorship, a thousand mail-ordered convictions cannot tar his democratic rival Prime Minister Bhutto out of public service and keep him in power!