Zardari Submitted 200 medical reports to dodge court cases

Internews Islamabad • Pakistan People’s Party leader Asif Zardari has presented more than 200 medical certificates in different courts both in the country and outside to delay the proceedings of corruption cases filed against him.
Political sources revealed here yesterday that the much-discussed medical reports about his alleged mental disorders were also challenged by the government of Pakistan as fake.
Sources in the National Accountability Bureau said that NAB in early 2007 wrote to the London High Court and questioned the authenticity of the medical report about mental disorders that recently made headlines.
“We wrote to the London High that the government of Pakistan believes that the psychiatrist’s report was a case of perjury and meant to delay the proceedings of the corruption case,” a source said.
He added that the London High Court was requested to constitute an independent medical board to ascertain if the accused is really suffering from psychological disorders or faking it.
When the court approved the request, it recommended the case to the Head of Psychiatry Department, Harvard University; Head of Psychiatry Department, Columbia University; or Head of Psychiatry Department, New York State University. On Pakistan’s request, the court approved the first option of Harvard University’s Psychiatry Department.
However, before the matter could proceed further, the Lahore-based NAB special cell, probing corruption cases against Zardari and his assassinated wife Benazir Bhutto, was closed following an understanding reached between the former prime minster and then-president General Pervez Musharraf.
The PPP sources, when approached, said that Zardari was kept in jail in worst conditions for 11 years.
They argued that if anybody faced such conditions for only one month, his health was bound to be adversely affected. They said the jail conditions affected adversely the health of Zardari, who, they asserted, fully recovered afterwards.
The PPP is of the view that both Zardari and Bhutto were the target of political victimisation and that fake corruption cases were framed against them.