Former Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has been sentenced to 10 years in prison and fined $10.6 million on corruption charges linked to 2016 Panama Papers revelations about his family’s properties overseas.
Dismissed from office as prime minister
Sharif was dismissed from office as prime minister in July of 2017, in a case lodged over disclosures in the Panama Papers leak, but which ultimately hinged on allegations that he had failed to declare a salary from his son’s UAE-based company. But Sharif keeps saying that he never received the salary. He claims that he held a position within that company in order to maintain a valid business visa in the Gulf state. But the Supreme Court ruled that whether he received the salary or not was immaterial. The three-time prime minister and three of his children continue to face trial for corruption charges in a National Accountability Bureau court, which is due to deliver a verdict in the coming weeks.
Sharif’s daughter Maryam has also been convicted to a seven-year prison term by the the National Accountability Bureau (Pakistan’s anti-graft court). Next to that the court convicted his son-in-law Muhammad Safdar to one year imprisonment and fined the family £10m and ordered the seizure of the Avenfield properties.
Denying wrongdoing
According to the BBC Sharif and his daughter have continued to deny wrongdoing and said the sentence is “politically motivated”. Sharifs brother Shahbaz, who heads the Pakistan Muslim League-N party, reportedly called the court’s decision “undemocratic.” In April 2016, an International Consortium of Investigative Journalists’ probe based on files leaked from Panamanian offshore provider Mossack Fonseca revealed how Sharif’s children were linked to offshore companies that owned four flats in a luxury apartment block in London. Those properties will be confiscated by the Pakistani government, according to the verdict.
