Islamabad: A Pakistani anti-corruption court today dropped the last of seven graft cases against PPP Chairman Asif Ali Zardari, removing a major hurdle in his becoming the prime minister.

Zardari, who has emerged as a frontrunner to lead a coalition government elbowing past PPP vice-president Makhdoom Amin Fahim, had been cleared in the six other cases by anti-corruption courts in Rawalpindi earlier this month in line with a Supreme Court order last month.

The decision in the seventh case had been reserved by Rawalpindi Judge Sagheer Quadri till today due to a "technical hitch". In the case registered in 2004, Zardari, 51, was accused of importing a BMW car while allegedly passing himself off as a student in order to evade paying duties.

Acquitting Zardari, the court said there was no proof that he had imported the car.

"After a lapse of 11-and-half years, the truth has prevailed today and justice has been done. Zardari, who was falsely implicated in these cases because of political reasons, has been acquitted in all the cases," Zardari's counsel Farooq H Naek said emerging from the court.

Zardari, widower of slain former premier Benazir Bhutto, had spent over eights years in jail in connection with the graft cases dating from Bhutto's spells as premier from 1988-1990 and 1992-1996.

Naek indicated that the dropping of the seventh case took longer as it was not covered by the National Reconciliation Ordinance, a controversial law passed in October last year by President Pervez Musharraf to grant amnesty in graft cases to PPP leaders, including Zardari and his slain wife Benazir Bhutto.
Source : PTI