NEW DELHI: Pakistan prime minister Nawaz Sharif ‘s daughter Maryam took to Twitter yesterday to call the Panama Papers “crap”, two weeks after her father managed to escape conviction for being named among those with offshore tax havens.
However, two of the reporters who were involved in breaking the story last year decided to respond and tell Maryam Nawaz Sharif what journalism is about and how consequential the details revealed in the Papers have been.
Panama is crap. Trashed in the rest of the world. Those relying on it to bring down NS wil bite the dust Insha’Allah https://t.co/j17LCdlfvV
— Maryam Nawaz Sharif (@MaryamNSharif)
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Maryam Nawaz Sharif not only called the investgation “crap” she went on an extended rant saying that the Papers has been “trashed in the rest of the world” and were intended to “bring down” her father.
Panama papers were never about corruption. Even the stealers & hackers (read originators) didn’t say it was. Losers in imminent danger 1/2
— Maryam Nawaz Sharif (@MaryamNSharif)
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She talked about a conspiracy “against Pakistan” with people in Pakistan.
Don’t want 2say much abt nexus bet u & yr Pak counterparts but sad that they bcame a part of conspiracy against Pak. https://t.co/HQANc2lvWT
— Maryam Nawaz Sharif (@MaryamNSharif)
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German journalists Bastian Obermayer and Frederick Obermaier of Suddeutsche Zeitumg decided to rebut the charge that the Panama Papers “were never about corruption”.
Sorry to tell you: #panamapapers ARE about #corruption. We found an astonishing number of corruption cases in the d… https://t.co/SONzRtMVzZ
— Bastian Obermayer (@b_obermayer)
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Trashed in the rest of the world? ICYMI: ~150 investigations, audits & investigations #PanamaPapers in ~80 countrie… https://t.co/Yn6F6mPOyx
— Frederik Obermaier (@f_obermaier)
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Obermaier especially hit back hard.
Sorry, I forgot this one… #PanamaPapers #Pakistan https://t.co/yjQcj1o0Lb
— Frederik Obermaier (@f_obermaier)
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Just for the record @MaryamNSharif #PanamaPapers https://t.co/NOr8yFuww5
— Frederik Obermaier (@f_obermaier)
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Pakistan newspaper Dawn spoke to Obermayer about the tweet storm.
“I don’t know why she tweeted what she tweeted, looks like party politics,” he told Dawn. His response, he said, was “generally about the Panama Papers”.
“To my best knowledge, no other head of state has challenged [their] veracity… not even Vladimir Putin, whose best friend we found in the centre of a number of offshore companies,” the German journalist said.
Maryam Nawaz Sharif’s tweetstorm both annoyed and amused opposition politicians. Sherry Rehman of the Pakistan People’s Party tweeted:
If #PanamaLeaks was a four-letter word, what is the SC adjudicating? Why did PM address the nation on it?Why did Iceland PM resign?
— SenatorSherryRehman (@sherryrehman)
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