Islamabad, Pakistan
Nawaz Sharif, 68, was ousted as prime minister and barred from holding political office by Pakistan’s supreme court in April 2017. The ruling followed many hearings on charges by his political opponents that he and his family had illegally hidden their wealth in overseas business and real estate deals.
The ruling by the National Accountability Court was the latest in a long series of blows to Nawaz Sharif, the country’s once-popular leader and three-time premier. The tumult has thrown his long-ruling political party, the Pakistan Muslim League-N, into disarray and division with national parliamentary elections less than three weeks away.
Commentators said the party, which has no other charismatic leader, will have difficulty winning enough seats to form a government and is likely to wind up in a weak coalition that will face challenges from both the powerful security establishment and rising religiously-based parties.
The trial of Nawaz Sharif and his 44-year-old daughter was an outgrowth of the original corruption case related to the financing of apartments in London and other overseas properties owned by members of the family, one of Pakistan’s political dynasties. The accountability court also sentenced Nawaz’s husband, Muhammad Safdar, to a one-year term.
The court ruled that all three family members had been involved in the ownership of four apartments in an upscale London district known as the Avenfield Flats. The Sharif family insisted the apartments were purchased through legitimate financial resources, but prosecutors said they had been unable or unwilling to produce proof of those claims to the court.