The Pakistan Supreme Court on Friday ruled out that Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, who was named in the Panama Papers investigation, has been disqualified from holding office. He quit the office as the prime minister of the country. The apex court has also ordered a case against the prime minister to be referred to the NAB (National Accountability Bureau).
The verdict was announced by a five-judge bench, headed by Justice Asif Saeed Khosa. He is the same judge who had commenced his dissenting note in the April 20 judgment with a quote from Mario Puzo’s novel, The Godfather, and declared him ‘disqualified’ for not being honest to the country.
Sharif was involved in money laundering to buy assets in London in the 1990s. The 2016 Panama Papers leak revealed that the assets were being managed through offshore companies owned by Sharif’s children. Thus it was proved that Sharif was involved in the Panama scandal.
The Panama Papers investigation was carried out by multiple news organisations after the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) shared files from the database of the world’s fourth biggest offshore law firm, Mossack Fonseca. The records had been obtained from an anonymous source by German newspaper, Süddeutsche Zeitung.
Sharif’s assets include four expensive flats in London.
