Suicide charge of Bhutto's husband
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Your support makes all the difference.ASIF ALI Zardari, the husband of the former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto, was charged yesterday by Pakistani police with attempting to commit suicide after sustaining "serious injuries" while under interrogation.
The police said that Zardari, 46, tried to kill himself - an offence under Pakistani law - while officers were questioning him in a special police prison in the southern city of Karachi about the alleged murder of his wife's estranged brother, a political rival, nearly three years ago.
Sources close to Zardari, who sits in parliament as a senator with the opposition Pakistan People's Party (PPP), denied the claim and said he had been tortured. Captain Wasif Syed, a senior official with the PPP, said: "His condition is very bad. He has bled fiercely from multiple wounds. He has been badly beaten. The police are just trying to cover up the injuries they inflicted."
Government sources said that Zardari had stabbed himself in the back of the neck with a broken glass.
He has been in custody in Karachi central prison since being arrested on charges of conspiring to murder his wife's estranged brother, Murtaza, in September 1996. According to the PPP, three days ago he was transferred from his usual cells in the prison to a special set of cells run by the secretive Criminal Investigation Agency in a suburb of the city.
The PPP claimed yesterday that Zardari, who suffers from back problems, was being denied proper medical attention.
Bhutto and Zardari were both convicted last month of taking massive bribes while in power. Judges sentenced them each to five years in prison and to an $8.6m (pounds 5m) fine.
One Pakistani court is still deciding whether to disqualify them both from holding public office, while another has told Bhutto that she must return to Pakistan - thus risking imprisonment herself - before being allowed to appeal against the corruption conviction.
Bhutto, 45, is currently staying at her home in Dubai with her three children.
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