An anti-corruption court in Pakistan has indicted the former prime minister Nawaz Sharif over allegations involving his family’s ownership of expensive London property, potentially paving the way for the imprisonment of the disqualified leader.
The indictment is the latest blow in a lengthy public fall triggered by last year’s Panama Papers leaks, and comes as Sharif’s family assiduously tries to maintain its influence in Pakistan.
Sharif, who was disqualified from office in July after failing to declare a £2,000 income from a Dubai-based company, was indicted alongside his daughter Maryam Nawaz and her husband, Muhammad Safdar.
All three pleaded not guilty. After the indictment, their lawyer read a statement saying the charges were “not only groundless, baseless and unfounded but also frivolous, and on top of that we are being denied our right to fair trial. The charges are being framed on a report that is incomplete and controversial. It will go down in history as mockery of justice and travesty of justice.”
Sharif is currently in London where his wife is undergoing surgery, but the speaker of Pakistan’s parliament has said he will return once her condition improves. Sharif was also indicted in a case related to ownership of a steel mill, involving his son Hussain.
Since his ejection from power, Sharif has worked to reassert his authority. This month his party, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), re-elected him as its leader despite the controversy, after he ran unopposed.
In September, in what was widely seen as a vote on Sharif’s legacy, his wife, Kulsoom Nawaz, narrowly clinched a local election in Lahore, Sharif’s stronghold, after a campaign run by their daughter Maryam.
For Sharif supporters, his disqualification was an act of overreach by the supreme court, which they say did the bidding of the country’s powerful military, a longstanding foe of Sharif’s.
Outside court on Thursday, Maryam seemed to indirectly leverage the same claim. “Each institution should do its job,” she said. “Injustice and atrocities cannot continue together.”
Others say the decision to bar the former PM on grounds of “dishonesty” was appropriate. After examining Sharif’s wealth, the supreme court ordered the national accountability bureau to investigate him and conduct a trial.
The Panama Papers showed the Sharifs’ London real estate was bought with offshore wealth in Sharif’s children’s names while they were still minors.
As part of her defence, Maryam, groomed to be her father’s successor, submitted documents purporting to show her innocence, but the font that appeared to have been used in them was not available at the time the documents were claimed to have been written.
On Thursday, hours before the indictment, a delegation from the accountability bureau arrived in London to collect evidence of the property owned by the Sharif family.
The bureau has asked the Pakistani interior ministry to request Interpol to issue red warrants for Sharif’s sons Hussain and Hassan in order for them to be extradited from the UK. The interior minister, Ahsan Iqbal, a close associate of Sharif, has yet to comply.