Asif Ali Zardari was born in 1955 to a well-known Baloch family from Nawabshah, Sindh. He married Benazir Bhutto, who later became Pakistan’s first female prime minister, in 1987.

Zardari’s initiation into politics was not very successful but his career began to take off after his marriage to Benazir. In both her governments, he was appointed federal minister — first with the portfolio of environment and later with that of investment.

In 1990, he was accused of tying a bomb to a businessman’s leg and sending him into a bank to withdraw cash from his account as a pay-off. The charge was never proven and Zardari was released after spending three years in prison.

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