ISLAMABAD, June 3 (Xinhua) -- A Pakistani court on Saturday issued arrest warrant for exiled Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and her spouse Asif Ali Zardari for submitting false statements of assets to the Pakistani Election Commission, local TV channel reported.
All Pakistani parliamentarians are bound under rules to submit statements of their assets to the Election Commission.
The state-run National Accountability Bureau had filed a case against the couple in a local court that Benazir Bhutto and her spouse had filed false statement in 1996, the GEO TV reported.
Judge Rafi uz Zaman of Islamabad District and Sessions Court issued arrest warrant for the former prime minister and her husband Saturday morning in the absence of the couple, according to GEO.
The court directed the Pakistani Interior Ministry to contact Interpol for the arrest of Benazir Bhutto and her husband and that they must be produced in the court on July 3, the TV report said.
Benazir Bhutto had been living in exile in the United Arab Emirate.
Benazir Bhutto was elected prime minister of Pakistan in 1988, only to be deposed 20 months later by the country's military-supported president Ghulam Ishaq Khan. She was re-elected in 1993 but was dismissed three years later amid various corruption scandals by the then president Farooq Leghari.
Her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, spent eight years in jail until he was released in November 2004. Enditem
