Panamagate: Nawaz Sharif's fate awaited as Pakistan Supreme Court to announce verdict on Friday

The political future of Pakistan's embattled Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will be decided tomorrow by the Supreme Court when it will announce its much-awaited verdict in the Panama scandal that also involves his family.

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.

The assets include four expensive flats in London.

Sharif, who has been the prime minister of Pakistan for a record three time, faces the risk of being disqualified if the court finds him guilty of corruption and money laundering.

He leads Pakistan's most powerful political family and the ruling PML-N party.

The verdict will be announce tomorrow at 11.30 am, according to a supplementary cause list issued this evening.

It is keenly awaited as both of Sharif's first two stints have ended in the third year of his tenure.

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 the Army chieg Pervez Musharraf in a bloodless coup.

In May, the Supreme Court set up a six-member joint investigation team (JIT) to investigate the charges against the 67-year-old Sharif and his family.

The JIT submitted its report to the court on July 10.

It 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.

On July 21, the court reserved its verdict after concluding the hearing.

Its decision to issue the verdict tomorrow came as a surprise to many as it earlier announced the cause list for two weeks which had not scheduled the Panamagate case.

In the wake of the verdict tomorrow, Islamabad police have announced special security arrangements and closed the capital's central "Red Zone" area, which has important buildings including the Supreme Court, for the general public.

The entry to the court tomorrow will be restricted to only those having special passes.

The six-member JIT was set up with a mandate to probe the Sharif family for allegedly failing to provide the trail of money used to buy properties in London in the 1990s.

The top court took up the case in October last year on petitions filed by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, Awami Muslim League and Jamaat-e-Islami and reserved the verdict in February after conducting hearings on a daily basis.

Meanwhile, 

Pakistan's powerful Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan today said that he would resign and quit politics after the Supreme Court judgement .

His announcement, which comes a day before the verdict in the high-profile case, stunned his supporters and the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party.

Khan expressed serious disappointment over the way he was kept away from Sharif by his rivals.

"I have decided to resign from the cabinet and Parliament after the (Panama) decision, whether it is in favour of the prime minister or against him," he told reporters.

Khan, who has 33 years of association with Sharif, did not target the prime minister but criticised some of the party leaders who have been speaking against him (Khan) in presence of Sharif with an objective to create differences.

"I had no one-to-one meeting with the prime minister during the last about six weeks," Khan said as he complained that he was kept out of the crucial consultations on the Panama case which now hangs over Sharif's head like a sword.

Khan, known as a hardcore ideologue within the party, rejected the impression that he may join a new party, saying he cannot even think of joining any other political outfit.

Speaking on civil-military relations, Khan said he had "never compromised on civilian supremacy" even though he had strong ties with the military.

"Ask any military or intelligence leader if I have ever attempted to undermine the government for political gain," said Khan whose grandfather, father, elder brother, nephews and several other relatives have been in army.

He said that he always supported civilian supremacy over armed forces and occasionally ran into troubles for criticising senior generals.

He also ruled out speculation that he was hoping to become the prime minister in case Sharif was disqualified.

"I am not in this race," Khan said.

Khan, respected for his outspokenness, puts Sharif in an awkward situation at a time when he is passing through the toughest time of his political career.

Sharif critics are using the press conference to portray that demise of PML-N had started even before the court verdict.

"It shows the internal rift in the party," said Skeikh Rashid Ahmad, a former associate of Sharif and now his fierce critic.