PM Nawaz’s name removed from Panama Papers: ICIJ

ISLAMABAD: The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), which unearthed the Panama Papers containing details of offshore companies, has removed the name of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif from all its news stories.

In its earlier stories titled “Panama Papers The Power Players” and “Giant Leak of Offshore Financial Records Exposes Global Array of Crime and Corruption”, the ICIJ had declared that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif controls offshore companies. The ICIJ had declared that the name of Nawaz Sharif was included in the data. The exact quotes about Nawaz in earlier stories were as follows: “The files exposed offshore companies controlled by the prime ministers of Iceland and Pakistan, the king of Saudi Arabia and the children of the president of Azerbaijan.”

However, the ICIJ has now issued a clarification reading: “Due to an editing error, a sentence in an earlier version of this story implied that the prime minister of Pakistan controlled an offshore company that appeared in the Panama Papers. It is his children who control the offshore companies.”

Under the above mentioned stories, the ICIJ website has now also clarified that “Hasan and Hussain Nawaz Sharif's visualizations were updated on April 21, 2016.”

The development apparently took place after Daniyal Aziz, a PML-N MNA, wrote a complaint to the ICIJ about inaccuracies and discrepancies in its reports about Nawaz Sharif. The ICIJ has updated its website and removed all the wrong facts on April 21, 2016. 

—Originally published in The News