Benazir Bhutto whom she was a champion of democracy and women's rights. Bhutto was born on 21 June 1953 in the Pakistani city of Karachi. Her father was the politician Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and her mother was Begum Nusrat Ispahani, of Iranian Kurdish parentage. Zulfikar was the son of Shah Nawaz Bhutto, a prominent politician who had served as Prime Minister of the Junagadh State. The Bhuttos were aristocratic, wealthy landlords from Sindh. They were Sunni Muslims, although Nusrat had been born into a Shia Muslim family before converting to Sunnism on her marriage. The couple had married in September 1951, and
Corruption charges against Benazir Bhutto and Asif Ali Zardari tied other overseas properties to Zardari's family. These include a $2.5 million manor in Normandy owned by Zardari's parents, who had modest assets at the time of his marriage. Bhutto denied holding substantive overseas assets. On 23 July 1998, the Swiss Government handed over documents to the government of Pakistan which relate to corruption allegations against Benazir Bhutto and her husband. The documents included a formal charge of money laundering by Swiss authorities against Zardari. The Pakistani government had been conducting a wide-ranging inquiry to account for more than $13.7 million frozen by Swiss authorities in 1997 that was allegedly