ISLAMABAD (Staff Report) – The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), a global union which exposed ownership of offshore companies by publishing Panama Papers, has said that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s name was included in the news stories based on Panama Papers due to editing mistake.
“Nawaz Sharif’s name doesn’t appear in original documents of Panama Papers, however a sentence included in Panama Papers story implied as if Pakistani Prime Minister directly controls the offshore companies,” a statement read.
As of April 21, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists has updated the information about offshore companies of Nawaz Sharif’s sons, which now states that Hassan Nawaz and Hussain Nawaz control the offshore companies.
Eleven million documents were leaked from one of the world’s most secretive companies, Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca revealed that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, his sons Hussain and Hasan Nawaz, and daughter Mariam Safdar set up at least four offshore companies in British Virgin Islands (BVI).
These companies owned at least six upmarket properties overlooking London’s Hyde Park.
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Sharif family mortgaged four of these properties to the Deutsche Bank (Suisse) SA for a loan of GBP 7 million and the Bank of Scotland part financed the purchase of two other apartments.
Mossack Fonseca’s email it it’s clients, one of which is alleged to be the Sharif Family. The documents also claim that the company , “Mossack Fonseca resigned from a company Hasan directed in 2007, calling him ‘a politically exposed person’.”
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The document leak, consisting over 11 million files, also exposes the dealings of 72 other current or former heads of state including dictators accused of looting their own countries.
Gerard Ryle, director of the ICIJ, said the documents covered the day-to-day business at Mossack Fonseca for over the past 40 years.
