Pakistan Asks Swiss for Zardari Probe

 Pakistan's anticorruption agency on Wednesday asked Swiss authorities to reopen a graft investigation of President Asif Ali Zardari on the orders of the country's top judge. The move ratchets up the battle between Mr. Zardari and Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, whose court in December overturned a 2007 amnesty that shielded the president and thousands of other politicians from corruption investigations. Geneva's public prosecutor Daniel Zappelli said Wednesday that Swiss authorities hadn't yet received the Pakistani request, adding that he couldn't reopen the case against Mr. Zardari because he enjoys immunity as a head of state, the Associated Press reported. Mr. Zardari spent 11 years in prison in Pakistan on corruption allegations, but he hasn't been convicted in a Pakistani court. He has consistently denied allegations. In 2003, a court in Geneva found Mr. Zardari and his wife, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, guilty of laundering kickbacks from a Swiss company, but the verdict was overturned on appeal. A subsequent Swiss investigation into the allegations was dropped in 2008 at the request of Pakistan, following the amnesty decree. But since Pakistan's Supreme Court struck down the decree in December, it has been pressing Pakistan's National Accountability Bureau anticorruption agency to revive case files of the thousands of politicians and former officials who had been shielded by the amnesty. Mr. Chaudhry on Tuesday gave agency Chairman Naveed Ahsan 24 hours to reopen the case against Mr. Zardari or face jail. Mr. Ahsan said on Wednesday he had sent a letter to Swiss authorities asking for the reopening of the investigation of money-laundering allegations against Mr. Zardari.