ISLAMABAD (BLOOMBERG, AFP) – Pakistan’s anti-graft court indicted former president Asif Ali Zardari on charges of corruption, as the opposition groups accused the government of Prime Minister Imran Khan of persecution.

Mr Azam Khan, a judge of an accountability court, formally framed charges against Zardari for buying assets overseas from undeclared sources, said Mr Muzafar Abbasi, a deputy prosecutor at the National Accountability Bureau, by phone.

Zardari, the widower of the country’s assassinated former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, has been accused of having dozens of bogus bank accounts, a charge he denies, saying he was being politically victimised by Mr Khan’s government.

He is the co-chairman of the opposition Pakistan Peoples Party and was arrested in June last year.

The indictment is the latest in a string of legal proceedings against Premier Khan’s political opponents.

Since coming to power, Mr Khan has pledged that his government would make good on his election campaign promise to fight corruption on all fronts.

A Pakistani court has jailed former premier Nawaz Sharif while many other opposition leaders are facing investigations by the nation’s anti-graft body.

Both Zardari and Sharif, who is in London, are on bail and seeking medical treatment.

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