Bhutto spouse gets scrutiny Corruption cases still follow Asif Ali Zardari, the new chief of the Pakistan Peoples Party.

LONDON - During the stormy years Benazir Bhutto ruled Pakistan, her husband was a top power broker and a prime target of corruption allegations that toppled her.

The assassination of the former prime minister has pushed her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, back into the heart of the storm. Their political party this week named Zardari to run its day-to-day affairs while appointing the couple's 19-year-old son to the ceremonial role of chairman.

Attention has focused again on the corruption cases that have swirled around Zardari at home and abroad and made him a polarizing figure even within the Pakistan Peoples Party.

Several cases in Europe offer insight into the long suspicions that have haunted him and, to some extent, his late wife. The cases raise questions about the sources of the family's wealth and the elaborate, secretive way in which the couple allegedly moved money.

The accusations center on Zardari, 51, a former polo player whose critics nicknamed him "Mr. 10 Percent" because of his alleged taste for bribes. After Bhutto's second government fell in 1996, authorities imprisoned Zardari on graft charges. Pakistan's anticorruption agency pursued investigations overseas, and several countries opened their own inquiries.

Zardari was released in 2004 and went into exile.

The most significant European cases are a Swiss money-laundering inquiry and a British civil case.

In 2003, a Swiss investigative magistrate decided he had the goods on Zardari and Bhutto after pursuing a money trail from offshore companies in the Caribbean to banks in Geneva to a jewelry shop here. Judge Daniel Devaud convicted Zardari and Bhutto of money laundering. He ruled that Swiss companies had bribed the pair in return for a Pakistani government contract. He froze about $12 million in suspected kickbacks.

But a Swiss appeals court set aside the verdict. A new magistrate reopened the investigation on charges of aggravated money laundering, a more serious offense based on the suspicion of systematic criminal activity.

Zardari's Swiss lawyer, Saverio Lembo, said his client had done nothing wrong.

In his 2003 verdict, the Swiss judge connected Zardari to a chain of corruption that began with two Swiss companies courting Zardari in hopes of landing a contract to provide container inspection equipment and expertise to the Pakistani customs agency, according to court records.

After talks with Zardari, the two companies won the contract in 1995 "upon the decision of Benazir Bhutto" and "despite the opposition of the customs service," the judge found.

As part of a secret deal, the judge found, the Swiss contractors funneled $11.9 million in bribes into three offshore companies in the British Virgin Islands and ultimately into bank accounts in Geneva. The nominal owners of two companies were Bhutto's mother and brother-in-law, according to the records.

The judge gave Zardari, Bhutto and another person suspended six-month sentences, but the appellate court set them aside. In the new inquiry, another investigative magistrate submitted his conclusions in October to the prosecutor general of Geneva, who must decide whether to pursue a trial.

In Britain, the decade-old civil proceedings focus on Zardari. In a lawsuit, the Pakistani government accused him of using illicit funds to acquire the 365-acre Rockwood estate, a $6.5 million property featuring a Tudor-style mansion. The estate was bought and refurbished in 1995 through trusts and companies linked to Bhutto, Zardari and the alleged kickbacks, according to the lawsuit.

Zardari denied ownership until January 2006, when he acknowledged he owned the property, according to British court records. A month later, a court concluded that it did not find evidence that proceeds of corruption were used to buy and refurbish the estate, according to the records.

Scotland Yard

antiterror police yesterday joined the inquiry into the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, in an effort to dispel accusations of government involvement.

Pakistani President

Pervez Musharraf said the British investigators would provide forensic and technical expertise, but he warned they would not be allowed

to go on a "wild-goose chase and create a political disturbance"

in the country.

The British officers

declined to comment

to reporters.

"Here's a situation

where maybe we need to go beyond ourselves to prove to the world and our people here . . . that we don't mind going

to any extent, as nobody is involved from the government side

or the agencies," Musharraf said.

- Associated Press