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Zardari goes on fast protesting harassment

Former Pakistan prime minister Benazir Bhutto's husband Asif Ali Zaradari, now implicated in a murder case, went on fast yesterday in the Crimes Investigation Agency centre in Karachi to protest harassment during remand.

He was arrested on Sunday in connection with the murder of justice Nizam Ahmed and his son in Karachi in June 1996 and sent to the CIA centre for interrogation.

Zaradari's lawyer, who met him in the centre for half an hour yesterday, later said he was not allowed to see his client alone. Two officers sat through this meeting.

Zaradari complained that he was not allowed to sleep the whole night and in protest had stopped eating food.

He has been implicated in this murder on the basis of two accused persons' claim at a press conference that they committed the murder at Zaradari's behest.

Zaradari and Benazir Bhutto were convicted in a corruption case last month by the Ehtesab bench of Punjab high court. The court sentenced them to five years imprisonment, disqualified them from holding public office, and fined them 8.6 million dollars.

Just four days before his arrest on Sunday, the supreme court on his appeal had suspended the disqualification part of the Punjab high court verdict for the time being.

UNI

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