ISLAMABAD, July 2: Former prime minister Benazir Bhutto may be sentenced for five years and fined up to one million Swiss franc in the SGS money laundering case, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) claimed.

A spokesman of the bureau said in a statement on Friday said that the court of Swiss examining magistrate had issued further details about Swiss laws relating to money laundering under which a person committing "illegal activity and gains a profit exceeding Swiss Francs 10,000, in fact commits an aggravated act of money laundering."

In consequence, the statement said, the penalty in an aggravated money laundering case could be higher than the punishment awarded in simple money laundering cases.

"The period of statutory imitation for the prosecution of aggravated offence is 15 years and the time-limit begins to run when the last infringement is committed," the spokesman said.

He said the Swiss attorney-general considered that Ms Bhutto, her husband Asif Ali Zardari and their frontman Jens Schelegelmich, who had earlier been recognised guilty of simple money laundering by the investigating magistrate, were in fact guilty of having committed aggravated money laundering in a foreign land.

The spokesman said Ms Bhutto and Mr Zardari had been using delaying tactics to avoid legal proceedings at an international judicial forum. Similarly, their claim about political involvement of the government of Pakistan obviously stood nullified because of additional indictment of Ms Bhutto declared by an independent judicial forum on a foreign land.

He said the order of additional indictment issued by examining magistrate Christine Junod on June 30 in Geneva completely refuted the earlier assertion by Ms Bhutto and Mr Zardari that initial judgment given by investigating magistrate Daniel Devaud was 'politically motivated' and aimed at character assassination of the couple planned by the government of Pakistan.

When contacted, Pakistan People's Party (Parliamentarians) spokesperson senator Farhatullah Babar contradicted the NAB's claim that Ms Bhutto had been indicted by the Swiss court.

He said the proceeding in Geneva was only an inquiry into the allegations against the former prime minister and not a court trial. "As a matter of fact there is no case against her in any court of law in any foreign country," the PPP spokesman said.

Mr Babar said the objective of the government and the NAB was to engage Ms Bhutto in "endless litigation and tarnish her image through media trial".