Bhutto ready to face court charge

Interpol issued the notice after a fresh request from Pakistan

The former Pakistan PM Benazir Bhutto has said she is prepared to return to her country to face any charges if summoned by the courts.

Ms Bhutto, who lives in self-imposed exile, made the statement following Interpol notices for the arrest of her husband, Asif Ali Zardari.

The couple are charged in a number of corruption cases relating to her time in power in the 1980s and 90s.

Ms Bhutto denies wrongdoing, arguing the charges are politically motivated.

Red letters

It is the first time Interpol has taken drastic action against the couple, although the body stresses the "red notices" do not amount to international arrest warrants.

My husband and I have faced these scurrilous, baseless and malicious and politically motivated charges for the last nine years Benazir Bhutto Benazir Bhutto's career Profile: Asif Ali Zardari

It said the notices had been sent last month after a fresh request from Islamabad.

A Pakistani court had ruled that Ms Bhutto and her husband were fugitives from justice because they had failed to appear in court to answer corruption charges.

"As far as I am concerned, if any court wants me in Pakistan, I am prepared to catch the next plane to Pakistan," she told reporters in Washington.

Mr Zardari has heart problems, his lawyers say

Ms Bhutto said the Interpol notices were called for by President Pervez Musharraf's government to "divert the attention" from local problems like the recent US missile strike in a remote tribal region bordering Afghanistan.

"Lot of questions are being asked [by the public]. To divert the attention of domestic press over the strikes, they [called for] the red notices," she said.

"[Mr Musharraf's] regime does not like me to speak about democracy and it does not like me to expose their policies about ambiguity."

The couple's lawyers said they had written to Interpol questioning the notices and were planning to challenge them legally.

Ms Bhutto is visiting her husband in the US, where his lawyers say he is undergoing medical treatment.

'Fugitives'

The couple face more than half a dozen corruption cases in Pakistan.

In at least one case, the former prime minister has been sentenced to three years imprisonment for her failure to appear for trial.

Benazir Bhutto has lived outside Pakistan since 1999

She and her husband are also being tried in Switzerland, where they deny taking kick-backs from a Swiss firm.

Interpol sent the notices, which carry photographs and personal details of the couple and specifically relate to the Swiss case, to all of its 184 member countries.

Any decision would depend on an extradition treaty existing between a particular country and Pakistan.

Ms Bhutto has lived mostly in London or Dubai since 1999, when Pakistan's military ruler Pervez Musharraf seized power.

Ms Bhutto maintains she has been co-operating with the authorities.

Farhatullah Babar of the Pakistan Peoples Party of Ms Bhutto has said the former premier "is neither a fugitive from law nor absconding from serving a jail term for which the government of Pakistan can request Interpol".

"Ms Bhutto has been appearing through her lawyers in all these cases against her in Pakistan and in Switzerland and therefore she is not a fugitive from the legal process," he said.

Mr Zardari was freed on bail in November 2004 after spending eight years in prison in Pakistan on charges ranging from corruption to murder.