Pak court to announce verdict on Panamagate case tomorrow
islamabad — The Supreme Court of Pakistan will announce its verdict in the Panamagate case on April 20, Thursday, after it added the matter in its cause list on Tuesday.
Confirming the news, ARY News tweeted: “PANAMA VERDICT has been finalised. Announcement will be in 60 hours.”
Last year, the Panama Papers scandal rocked governments, exposed high-profile personalities, triggered scores of investigations around the world and dealt a blow to Panama as an offshore financial hub.
Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif ’s alleged wrongdoing came to light as part of a massive leak of secret files from a Panamanian law firm that specialises in setting up offshore companies in tax havens. A trove of 11.5 million digital records from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca last year revealed how many of the world’s wealthy used offshore companies to stash assets.
According to the Panama Papers, three of Sharif ’s four children — Maryam, Hasan and Hussain — were owners of offshore companies and “were owners or had the right to authorise transactions for several companies”. But Sharif and his family have dismissed the allegations of money laundering and denied any wrongdoing.
Since the Panama Papers in June 2016, opposition parties have been jumping at the opportunity to register their protests and mobilise supporters to rally against Nawaz Sharif.
“I can say with surety that... not a single penny went out of Pakistan,” emphasised PM Sharif on the floor of parliament on May 16, 2016, soon after details emerged in the Panama Papers.
In the immediate aftermath, Iceland’s Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson was forced to resign after the leak showed his family sheltered assets offshore. —