Pakistan traces Bhutto 'drug cash' to London
by Jason Burke

MILLIONS of pounds in British bank accounts said to belong to Benazir
Bhutto, the deposed prime minister, could be seized by the Pakistani
authorities.

Pakistan formally asked the Home Office last month to freeze and confiscate
the money, which it claims was earned through corruption and drugdealing.

This month four members of the government's "accountability cell", an
investigation team set up by Nawaz Sharif, the present prime minister and
political opponent of Bhutto, flew to London to make inquiries and meet the
British authorities.

A source at the Pakistan high commission in London says the team has built
up a comprehensive dossier on Bhutto. "We are looking at a lot of money,
many millions of pounds at least," he said.

The team, set up to investigate the financial dealings of Bhutto's
administration and answering directly to Sharif, has now hired a British
firm of private detectives. The investigators want to establish whether
Bhutto's assets include property in London's West End and a £3m mansion
with a private airstrip, armed guards and a swimming pool near Haslemere,
Surrey.

The attempt to seize the assets in London is the latest twist in a
political struggle between Bhutto and Sharif, who replaced her as prime
minister last year. Bhutto ­ a former president of the Oxford Union and a
Harvard graduate ­ was dismissed by the president for alleged corruption
and misrule.

Last month Sharif convinced the Swiss government to freeze for three months
bank accounts said to hold up to £150m. Six accounts in the British Virgin
Islands have also been frozen.

The Pakistani authorities say accounts in other countries hold as much as
£1 billion "wilfully and knowingly plundered [by the Bhuttos] for their own
personal motives", and they maintain they can prove much of the money is
from drug deals. Bhutto, who met the Queen on her recent visit to Pakistan,
denies the Swiss accounts are hers and rejects corruption and drugdealing
charges as "absolutely untrue and baseless".

British supporters rallied to Bhutto this weekend. Mian Afzal Khalid,
president in Britain of her Pakistan People's party, said the allegations
were a politically motivated smear.

Freezing the British accounts would be a particularly cruel blow for
Bhutto, who is known to favour Britain as a haven should she be forced out
of Pakistan.