four months. Moreover Devaud ordered the confiscation of all the millions.
These sentences were based on a huge number of documented pieces of evidence as detailed in judge Daniel Devaud’s order that had been provided to ‘Beobachter’. Many letters retraced the contract negotiations, conducted by the Geneva lawyer of the two Pakistani politicians and state of payments of commission fees of several million US dollars. Devaud collected dozens of documents, proving the fact of regularly paid bribes between 1995 and 1997 on Zardari’s offshore accounts, whereof the Geneva lawyer got his percentage.
However, legal proceedings were activated against Devaud’s orders as high court judge, and finally the case landed on the table of attorney general Zappelli. As a first step, he (the AG) enlarged the investigations of the case by claiming that it was grand money laundering (and no more only simple money laundering), but then he closed unexpectedly the procedure at the end of August 2008 and released the withheld millions.
Devaud’s view of the August 2008 decision from his point of view, Daniel Zappelli did not act correctly in closing the Zardari/Bhutto case. It is known that in Geneva, the attorney general alone decides if a case belongs to grand money laundering category. And Daniel Zappelli is no friend of complicated money laundering cases. As a member of the right-wing party FDP, when he was elected in 2002, he announced that as prosecutor of Geneva, he would above all care for Geneva.
AG Daniel Zappelli by declaring this to be a case of grand money laundering brought it under his own jurisdiction and that the Swiss AG was not very keen - from possibly political considerations, among others - in pursuing money-laundering cases because such money was seen by some as financially helpful for the Swiss economy.
It is just amazing that all this happened only three days after Asif Ali Zardari announced his intention to run for Pakistan’s Presidency. Zappelli’s decision to close the Geneva procedure against Zardari was an enormous gift for Asif Ali Zardari. Indeed, in Pakistan the political situation had recently become different in a dramatic way: Benazir Bhutto came back to Pakistan and died during a criminal attempt, the reason why Zardari was back on the political stage.
Geneva’s attorney general decided to close the Swiss procedure on the intervention of Pakistan’s Attorney General. He declared that investigations in Geneva would not allow contradiction of the findings of Pakistan’s Attorney General. He clearly stated that in the Bhutto/Zardari case, no evidence could be found in Switzerland against them for an indictment. Hearing this, Daniel Devaud felt rather grieved. Among other observations, he declared in the “New York Time” that it was rather hard to pretend that no evidence proving corruption could be found in this case.
Daniel Devaud is not the only one to criticise things as they are. Bernard Bertossa, a former attorney general of Geneva, preceding Zappelli, dealt also with the Bhutto/Zardari case, and completely agrees with Daniel Devaud. He considers the fact of closing the Bhutto/Zardari file as an “incomprehensible decision”. Already in 2002, this file/case was ready for indictment, “holding absolutely sufficient evidence to indict and sentence Zardari and his Geneva lawyer.”
Zappelli’s statement opened many questions: why the Geneva surveillance company got 10 percent of the bargain, i.e. $12 million, paid on off-shore accounts belonging to the husband of Bhutto, Asif Ali Zardari, as shown by the documents filed. Why the Geneva lawyer of Bhutto and Zardari had initiated the deal and periodically collected the due fees from the surveillance company? Why a lawyer’s memorandum showed that the offshore account belonged “50% to Zardari - 50% to BB” - that was to say half to Asif Ali Zardari and half to Benazir Bhutto? And why the clearly established evidences were not submitted for indictment?
It is pertinent to mention here that in Switzerland, the prosecuting authorities run under the principle “in dubio pro reo” meaning precisely that in case of doubt, it is up to the court and not to the attorney general to decide whether evidences are sound and valid. Under such circumstances, an indictment seems to be inevitable. In spite of Zappelli’s resistance, there are good chances that he will once more be compelled to deal with the Zardari case. Indeed, since the revocation of the amnesty by the Supreme Court of Pakistan in December 2009, declaring it as null and void, it is eager to revive the criminal procedure in Switzerland. Zardari was a beneficiary of NRO and now that is no more the case.
Judge Danial Devaud contradicted Zappelli’s assertions by saying that only half the truth was told when speaking to international media, Zappelli said earlier that the Zardari file could not be re-opened as Zardari, as President of Pakistan, was under immunity protection. With such a statement Zappelli, however, told only half the truth. As a matter of fact, the Geneva lawyer of Zardari who once handled the whole deal, as shown by the filed investigation documents, and who got large profits out of it, could very easily be indicted by the attorney general of Geneva - until 2012, when the latest criminal act would lapse.
Judge Devaud asked if the attorney general of Geneva was handicapped by strong pressures when facing lawyers and financial actors of the city of Geneva. That suspicion had already occurred in another case.
This implies that according to the article, Attorney General Zappelli is reluctant to pursue money-laundering cases too vigorously to thus ensure that the tainted money is not returned to the rightful owner and remains in Swiss Banks to the financial benefit to the Swiss economy.
It is up to the supervisory authority of Geneva to judge Zappelli’s way of handling the Bhutto/Zardari/Geneva-lawyer case. Since the end of December, this authority filed information reproaching Zappelli on his inaccurate handling of the procedure.
