Islamabad: The joint investigation team which looked into Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s family assets in London following the the Panama Papers leak scandal has recommended reopening of 15 cases against the embattled leader, a media report said on Sunday. The high-profile scandal is about alleged money laundering by Mr Sharif in 1990s, when he twice served as Prime Minister, to purchase assets in London. The assets surfaced when Panama Papers leak last year revealed that they were managed through offshore companies owned by Mr Sharif’s children.
The six-member JIT which probed the issue submitted its final report to the Supreme Court on July 10. It said the lifestyle of Mr Sharif and his children were beyond their known sources of income, and recommended filing of a new corruption case against them. Mr Sharif has dismissed the report as a “bundle of baseless allegations”.
According to the report in Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper, the JIT has asked the court to reopen 15 old cases, including five cases decided by the Lahore High Court, eight investigations and two inquiries against the Prime Minister. Meanwhile, Mr Sharif’s team has finalised a draft petition to challenge the finding of the JIT, officials said. The Sharif family, accused of corruption, has raised various objections over JIT report for its findings without using testified documents and the sources. The draft also alleges biased attitude of the JIT members towards the family.
