Nawaz Sharif Disqualified as Pakistan PM in Panama Papers Case: Chronicle of His Rise And Fall

With Supreme Court's landmark verdict, Nawaz Sharif once again couldn't complete his full five-year term as the Prime Minister of Pakistan.

Islamabad, July 28: Pakistan Supreme Court on Friday ordered disqualification of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif after finding him guilty in Panama Papers case. Ordering the removal of Nawaz Sharif as the Prime Minister of Pakistan, Supreme Court asked authorities to file a case against him. Supreme Court’s ruling came after a probe team found Nawaz Sharif’s wealth far above his earnings in the Panama Papers case. The prime minister was disqualified from holding his office as the judges ruled that he had been dishonest to Parliament and the courts and could not be deemed fit for his office.

Born on December 25 in 1949, Nawaz Sharif is the son of Ittefaq and Sharif Group founder Muhammad Sharif. Before entering politics in the later 1970s, Sharif studied business at Government College and later law at the University of Punjab. The Sharif family owns Ittefaq Group, a multimillion-dollar steel conglomerate and Sharif Group, a conglomerate company with holdings in agriculture, transport and sugar mills.

• In 1981, Nawaz Sharif was appointed as the Minister of Finance for the province of Punjab by a military government.
• Sharif was elected as the Chief Minister of Punjab in 1985 and re-elected after the end of martial law in 1988.
• A steel tycoon cum politician, Sharif had served as the Pakistan’s prime minister for the first time from 1990 to 1993.
• Sharif’s first stint as the Prime Minister of Pakistan ended on April 18, 1993 when President Ghulam Ishaq Khan dismissed his government on corruption charges.
• Though Pakistan’s Supreme Court termed Sharif’s dismissal unconstitutional and ordered his reinstatement, then army chief Waheed forced both Sharif and Khan to resign.
• On february 17 in 1997, Nawaz Sharif was again sworn-in as the Prime Minister of Pakistan.
• Sharif and his Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) won a landslide victory in the elections, defeating Benazir Bhutto and her People’s party.
• His second term from 1997 was ended in 1999 by the Army chief Pervez Musharraf in a bloodless coup.
• In 2000, Nawaz Sharif was put on trial by military and sentenced to life imprisonment on charges of plane hijacking/terrorism.
• Sharif was convicted of corruption and sentenced to an additional 14-years imprisonment while already serving a life sentence.
• He was placed in Adiala Jail, infamous for hosting Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s trial.
• The military refrained from awarding death sentence to Sharif and placed him in exile for the next 10 years under a deal brokered by the Saudi royal family.
• On August 23, 2007, Pakistan’s Supreme court lifts the exile imposed on Sharif. He served only seven of his 10-year exile.
• In 2008 parliamentary elections, Sharif’s party Pakistan Muslim League-N won 67 seats, placing second to the party of the late Benazir Bhutto, the PPP. In February, the PPP and the Pakistan Muslim League-N announce that they will form a coalition government.
• In August, Sharif announced split from the government following disagreements over the reinstatement of judges Musharraf dismissed.
• Pakistan’s Supreme Court clears Sharif of hijacking charges, paving the way for him to legally run for office, but he was ineligible to run for prime minister due to term limits.
• In 2010, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari voluntarily signed the 18th Amendment to the constitution. Zardari not only diminished his powers, but also removed the two term limit for prime ministers, allowing Sharif to vie for a third term.
• In 2013, Sharif was elected as the Prime Minister after his PML-N formed a coalition government.
• In May 2017, Pakistan’s Supreme Court set up a six-member joint investigation team (JIT) to investigate the charges against Sharif and his family in Panama Papers case. The JIT submitted its report to the court on July 10.
• The six-member JIT was set up with a mandate to probe the Sharif family for allegedly failing to provide the trail of money used to buy properties in London in the 1990s.
• On July 28, 2017, Pakistan’s Supreme Court ordered Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to step down and ruled that graft cases be filed against him and his children over the Panama Papers scandal.

With Supreme Court’s landmark verdict, Nawaz Sharif once again couldn’t complete his full five-year term as the Prime Minister of Pakistan.