Pakistan’s supreme court has removed the prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, from office in a unanimous verdict over corruption allegations that will further upset the country’s unstable political landscape. The verdict by the five-member court caps a year of political controversy over corruption allegations unleashed by the 2016 Panama Papers leak.

The governing party, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), said Sharif had stepped down immediately. The party must now choose an interim prime minister to be accepted by parliament. The ruling will throw the governing party and the country at large into turmoil ahead of elections due next year. The 10-year disqualification of Sharif cut short the third tenure of a man who has been a leading figure in Pakistani politics for nearly three decades since his first term from 1990 to 1993. It is the most serious political ramification yet of the Panama Papers leak, which detailed financial dealings of the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca.(theguardian)…[+]