Panama Papers and Nawaz Sharif: All You Need to Know

Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was on Friday disqualified from office by the Supreme Court which sent his case to an anti-corruption court for trial in the Panamagate graft scandal. In a unanimous verdict, the Supreme Court ordered that a case be registered against Sharif and ruled that a reference be sent against him and his family to an accountability court. The court also ordered the National Accountability Bureau to wrap up the case within six weeks.

Here’s all you need to know about the case:

— The scandal is about alleged money laundering by 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 Sharif's children.

— A report by a Joint Investigation Team submitted said the lifestyle of Sharif and his children were beyond their known sources of income, and recommended filing of a new corruption case against them. Sharif dismissed the report as a "bundle of baseless allegations" and refused to quit, despite demands to do so from several quarters, including opposition political parties.

— Three of Sharif's four children — Maryam, his presumptive political heir, and his sons Hasan and Hussein — have been implicated.

— They have been accused of owning offshore companies and undisclosed assets, including four expensive flats in Park Lane, London.

— The first flat was purchased by Nescoll Limited on January 1, 1993. The second and third flats where purchased on July 31, 1995 by Nielsen Enterprise. The fourth flat was purchased by Nescoll Limited on July 30, 1996.

— Properties owned by the Sharif family in London’s upscale Park Lane neighbourhood were purchased in the 1990s. The Sharifs own property worth more than 20 million pounds (Rs 2.7 billion) in and around Central London.

— Of these, the Sharif family residence, three flats at 17 Avenfield House, 118 Park Lane alone are worth around 12 million pounds (Rs 1.6 billion).

— A typeface had also sparked uproar in Pakistan after documents using the font were produced in the case — despite being dated a year before the design was released.

— Microsoft's Calibri font was used to type certified papers naming Sharif's daughter Maryam as a trustee for several of the family's high-end London properties.

— But the papers were dated February 2006 — a year before the font in which they are typed was in widespread commercial use

— The push against Nawaz Sharif has been spearheaded by cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan and his Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf party, who said Sharif has lost "moral authority".

— The PML-N insists the wealth was acquired legally, through Sharif family businesses in Pakistan and the Gulf.

— Sharif has been the prime minister of Pakistan for record three times. He leads Pakistan's most powerful political family and the ruling PML-N party.

— A steel tycoon-cum-politician, Sharif had served as the Pakistan's prime minister for the first time from 1990 to 1993. His second term from 1997 was ended in 1999 by Army chief Pervez Musharraf in a bloodless coup.