Swiss judge upset over dropped probe

NEW YORK - A judge in Geneva who originally investigated corruption allegations against Asif Ali Zardari, the leading presidential candidate, has said that the Swiss move to drop the case against the PPP leader and to release his assets worth millions of dollars should not be interpreted as a sign of Zardari’s innocence, according to a report in The New York Times on Thursday.

Judge Daniel Devaud expressed ‘shock’ over the Swiss action, which followed Pakistan’s attorney general’s notification to the Swiss in June that he was no longer investigating Zardari, the newspaper said in a dispatch from Frankfurt.

The attorney general wrote that neither Zardari nor Benazir Bhutto had done anything illegal, and that the charges had been politically motivated, the Swiss prosecutor general, Daniel Zappelli, told The Times Wednesday.

“For money laundering to be proven, you have to show it was the product of a crime, but we don’t have any evidence for a crime committed in Pakistan,” Zappelli said.