A few weeks ago, we reported that Microsoft"s Calibri font has been used as evidence against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his family in a corruption case. Today, Sharif has been disqualified from his position as a part of the court"s final verdict of the case.
The case concerns the "Panama Papers", which is a collection of 11.5 million documents detailing information related to over 200,000 offshore accounts. Ever since the Panama Papers were anonymously leaked back in 2015, there has been a major shift in the political situation in many countries. One such country is Pakistan, where the names of numerous members of the Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif"s family were spotted in the papers.
If you aren"t aware of the Calibri controversy, it is as follows: Nawaz Sharif"s daughter Maryam Nawaz submitted photocopies of several documents in order to deny any corruption, but it appears that the documents contained Microsoft"s Calibri font, even though they were dated February 6, 2006. It is important to note that the font wasn"t commercially available until much later. Despite being created in 2004, the font did not reach the general public until January 30, 2007.
After a couple of weeks of further investigation, the Supreme Court of Pakistan has announced its decision, disqualifying the Prime Minister from holding office for life, and ordering an accountability court to open a case against him, his family members, as well as several other ministers. The judges unanimously declared Sharif"s actions and overwhelming evidence of corruption to be dishonest to the parliament.
This is not the first time that the Prime Minister has been unable to complete his allotted five years in office. In fact, he was removed from the position in 1993 and 1999 as well. While Calibri did play a role in the deposition of Nawaz Sharif, it is important to note that there was other evidence to back up the decision against him as well.