Pakistan’s prime minister faces trial in corruption case
Pakistan’s supreme court yesterday began hearings on a corruption report that will decide the future of prime minister Nawaz Sharif.
The court is expected to put Mr Sharif on trial on corruption charges or disqualify him, but few expect the case to be dismissed after a panel tabled a damaging 254-page report into his family’s wealth.
He has denied any wrongdoing after the report claimed his family’s vast wealth was beyond its means and accused his children, including presumed heir Maryam, of signing forged documents to obscure the ownership of luxury flats in London.
Mr Sharif, 67, has rejected demands by opposition parties to resign and said his removal would destabilise the country and imperil hard-won economic gains since his election victory in 2013.
“It hurts that despite of our hard work, attempts are afoot once again to push the country back,” he told his ruling PML-N parliamentary party at the weekend.
Mr Sharif escaped disqualification in April after the court ruled that there was insufficient evidence to remove him over documents released by the Panama Papers leak into offshore wealth.
But it ordered a joint investigation panel to be set up.
Mr Sharif has talked of a conspiracy against him but has not named anyone. His allies, however, privately claim that elements of Pakistan’s powerful military and the judiciary are moving against him.
An army spokesman brushed aside questions about claims that the military was the driving force behind the investigation, saying “the Pakistan army is not directly connected”.
The six-person panel included a member of the military intelligence agency and one from the powerful inter-services intelligence directorate, Pakistan’s top spy agency.
Mr Sharif, who is serving his third term in power, is the son of an industrialist and has had a fractious relationship with the army.
He was originally nurtured by the military as a civilian politician who would protect their interests and has served as prime minister twice in the 1990s.
But relations soured and his second stint as prime minister ended when he was ousted in a 1999 coup that led to a decade of exile.
Relations with the military during this term have also been tense at times.
Mr Sharif’s legal team and the opposition will be given a chance to contest the panel’s findings and he is expected to be summoned to appear before the court in coming days or weeks.
Opposition politicians said if he really wanted to protect democracy he should step down.
Imran Khan, the opposition leader who pushed the hardest for Mr Sharif to be investigated, said the premier would end up in jail and vowed protests if he was not removed from his post.