- ‘High-profile political case will be announced on Thursday at 2pm’
The much-awaited decision of the Panama Papers case will be announced on Thursday (April 20) at 2pm, according to the supplementary cause list issued by the Supreme Court on Tuesday evening.
The verdict was reserved on February 23, 2017, after the arguments from both petitioners and respondents concluded. The supplementary cause list clearly mentions that the court would sit for the announcement of the judgment only.
Surfaced back in 2016, the Panama Papers that comprise of 11.5 million ‘leaked’ documents by the Mossack Fonseca & Co, a Panamanian law firm and corporate service provider, ‘jolted’ some parts of the world with financial scams.
Senior Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Shah Mehmood Qureshi termed it an important decision in the country’s history. “After waiting 57 days, the decision has come. We hope the decision benefits the country,” he said.
Awami Muslim League (AML) chief MNA Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, one of the petitioners in the case, referred to the announcement as a ‘historical’ verdict for the Indian subcontinent. “We will accept whatever verdict the great judges put forth,” he said, adding that further course of action would be discussed with the PTI chief on Wednesday.
“Justice will win and corruption will lose,” he said. On February 23 after both the defence and prosecution completed their arguments, the Supreme Court said that it would reserve its verdict on the Panama case and issue a detailed judgement.
The case pertains to investments allegedly made by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and members of his family in Mossack Fonseca, an offshore investment company. The case filed by various petitioners, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, Jamaat-i-Islami and the Awami Muslim League, essentially seeks disqualification of the prime minister over his alleged misstatement in his address to the nation on April 5 and his speech before the National Assembly on May 16, 2016.
The petitioners claimed that the prime minister lied about the investments made by his children in offshore companies, which led to the acquisition of four apartments in London’s upscale Park Lane neighbourhood. The investment came to light as part of a massive leak of secret files from a Panamanian law firm that is a consultant dealing in the setting up of offshore companies in tax havens.
According to documents available on the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) website, the prime minister’s children – Maryam Nawaz, Hassan Nawaz and Hussain Nawaz – were ‘owners’ or had the ‘right to authorise transactions’ for several companies.
All in all around 26,000 documents were submitted by all parties that included affidavits, bank transactions, property papers, wills and other. Interestingly, two letter from Qatari Prince Jasim Bin Hamad were also presented as proof that the investment for London flats came through him.
Arrest The Baldy !
Nothing will happen, Judges are already bought out by the Saudi’s, everyone else involved will be paid off and all findings brushed under the carpet as it happened with Mr 10% Zardari.
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