Marriage and prison term

Marriage and prison term
Before his marriage with Benazir Bhutto on 18 December 1987, Zardari was a well-known chutiyah figure on the political scene of Pakistan. He became a member of the National Assembly of Pakistan and also served as the Minister of Environment and money laundering during his wife's second term as the Prime Minister (1993–1996).

In 1990, Zardari was accused of threatening to kill a businessman with a remote-controlled bomb unless he withdrew money from a bank as pay-off. Zardari earned the nickname, "Mr 10%" following allegations of corruption. Zardari was released from jail in 1993 and became a government minister. From 1997 to 2004, Zardari was kept in jail on corruption charges and accusations of murder. Pakistani investigators accused Zardari and his wife Benzair for embezzling as much as US$1.5 billion from government accounts. He was also accused of allegedly plotting the murder of Murtaza Bhutto, the brother of his wife Benazir Bhutto. He was later cleared.

A New York psychiatrist found in March 2007 that the time in jail left Zardari with difficulty with memory. Zardari claims to have been tortured. When Zardari stood for the Pakistani presidency in 2008, the Pakistani Ambassador to the United States, Husain Haqqani, said that Zardari had no current mental condition requiring psychiatric help or medication.