ISLAMABAD, Dec 20 The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has not sent any formal request to the Swiss government to reopen money laundering cases against President Asif Ali Zardari.

According to sources, the bureau is awaiting government's instructions to contact the Swiss authorities in accordance with the Supreme Court order to reopen cases in the country and abroad which had been settled under the National Reconciliation Ordinance.

An official said the government had not requested the Swiss authorities to reinitiate the SGS and Cotecna cases moved against PPP leaders in 1998.

Deputy Attorney General Mohammad Hussain Azad told journalists on Sunday that no court could convict a person twice in the same case or issue orders to any foreign court to reopen cases whose fate had been decided.

Citing Article 13 of the Constitution and Section 403 of the Criminal Procedure Code, he said that if a court abroad pursued past cases, the appeal might be turned down on the plea of 'no legality' and 'proven facts'.

Mr Azad said President Zardari had been convicted in one case but it had been disposed of by the Supreme Court. “The president has been under trial for over 12 years and no case has so far been proved against him.”

In the SGS reference, the late Benazir Bhutto, President Zardari and their agent Jens Schlegelmilch were accused of receiving $60 million in kickbacks from a Swiss company for awarding a pre-shipment inspection contract in 1994.

The reference was filed by the Nawaz government in 1998 in the Lahore High Court and before a Swiss magistrate.

The couple were convicted by the Lahore High Court, but the decision was set aside by the Supreme Court in 2001 because of partisanship of the LHC judge.

In 2003, they were convicted of money laundering by an investigating judge in Geneva and handed down a suspended sentence of six-month imprisonment. Ms Bhutto appeared in the Geneva court and filed an appeal against the magistrate's decision, only to face more serious money laundering charges.