The former Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for corruption in a verdict likely to influence the general election due to be held on 25 July. The National Accountability Bureau (NAB), Pakistan’s anti-graft court, ruled that Sharif and his family laundered money in the 1990s to pay for four luxury apartments in Park Lane in London, drawing on allegations that resurfaced in the Panama Papers leak, published by the Guardian and others in 2016.

The court also sentenced Sharif’s daughter and presumed political heir, Maryam Nawaz Sharif, to seven years’ imprisonment, fined the family £10m and ordered the seizure of the Avenfield properties. “The Pakistani nation and the PML-N [Pakistani Muslim League (Nawaz), Sharif’s party] reject this decision,” Sharif’s brother, Shahbaz Sharif, told reporters. “This is a dark chapter in the history of this country. There was no solid legal evidence in the entire case.” Sharif, who has been at the sickbed of his wife, Kulsoom Nawaz, in London, did not attend the hearing. The court earlier denied his request for a week-long delay to the verdict while she is on a respirator following treatment for throat cancer.(theguardian)…[+]