Karachi, July 11: The father-in-law of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was sentenced today to five years in prison after being convicted of corruption, court officials said. A judge in a special anti-corruption court ruled Hakim Ali Zardari, 71, failed to explain how he could afford to buy a 4.8 million francs (dlrs 724 million) house in Normandy, France, in 1990.

The purchase ``doesn't match (Zardari's) ostensible means of income,'' Judge Azizullah Memon said in his ruling.

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Memon fined Zardari, a former chairman of the Public Accounts Committee in Bhutto's government, 18.5 million rupees (dlrs 295 ,000) and debarred him from holding any public office for 10 years. Zardari was also barred from taking loans from any financial institution.

Zardari, who was brought to the court in a wheelchair, maintained his innocence after the verdict, which he called unfair. Zardari is currently serving an 18-month prison term on a previous corruption conviction. Pakistan's accountability court found him guilty of misusing the post to obtain a loan from the National Development Finance Corp.

On Tuesday, Bhutto was sentenced to a further three-year prison term for failing to appear in court to answer corruption charges.

Bhutto was ousted in 1996 amid a corruption scandal an now lives in self-imposed exile in the United Arab Emirates. Bhutto and her husband Asif Ali Zardari were found guilty of corruption by the high court in April 1999. They both were sentenced to five-year jail terms, fined and disqualified from politics for seven years.
Bureau Report