GENEVA, July 1: Former prime minister Benazir Bhutto now faces more severe money laundering charges against her in Switzerland, paving the way for her trial before a Swiss jury, legal officials and lawyers said on Thursday.

Geneva investigating magistrate Christine Junod said she had formally charged Ms Bhutto with aggravated money laundering at a hearing on Wednesday, marking a step up from the simple money laundering case first opened in 1997.

"The legal qualification of laundering can be made in this way when the amount thought to have been laundered, in this case about 12 million dollars, is high enough," Ms Junod told the Swiss news agency ATS.

Legal sources said the charge carries a stiffer penalty and also extends the statute of limitations from about seven years to 15 years for the former prime minister, who was forced out of office in 1996.

Once the examining process is completed, the case must be tried in court by a jury. It carries a maximum sentence of five years in jail as well as a fine of about one million Swiss francs if Ms Bhutto is found guilty.

Francois Micheli, a lawyer for the Pakistani government, told AFP that the seven year-old Swiss legal battle may reach a court room in 2005. Ms Bhutto's lawyer Alec Reymond said he was seeking to have the Pakistani government excluded from the case after it struck an out-of-court settlement with the Swiss inspection company SGS over the contract that helped trigger the laundering allegations.

Another Geneva magistrate ruled by decree on July 2003 that the Bhuttos and their lawyer Jens Schlegelmilch were guilty of laundering US$11.7 million through Swiss bank accounts and handed down a six month suspended jail sentence. But that sentence was overturned automatically through an appeal and led to a re-examination of the case under the current procedure. -AFP