Swiss prosecutors on Friday revealed that they had received mixed messages from Pakistan regarding the reopening of graft cases against President Asif Zardari.
In addition to the fact that the alleged offences took place more than 15 years ago, the prosecutors said that just a month after filing the renewed request, Pakistan sent them a letter stating that the call for a revived probe was linked to domestic politics and that there was no need to heed it. That amounted to abuse of the legal system, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors in Geneva said that the decision to not reopen the cases was taken on February 4 this year, and that they had only opted to make it public as a result of street protests in Pakistan.
They declined to comment in detail, but the Swiss news portal 20minutes.ch published photographs of anti-Zardari protestors burning Switzerland’s flag at a rally in Pakistan.
In November 2012, the Pakistani government renewed its request for Swiss legal assistance after being ordered to do so by the Supreme Court.
Geneva prosecutors said that no new evidence had emerged since the case was dropped in 2008, meaning they could not reopen the investigation.