Iceland PM Sigmundur Gunnlaugsson has temporarily resigned from office amid mounting public outrage that he hid millions in offshore account as shown on documents allegedly leaked from a Panamanian law firm.
According to a government press statement, in the face of growing popular uproar in his tiny mid-Atlantic nation over his links to an offshore company in a Caribbean tax haven revealed in some of the leaked documents.
The leaked documents from the Mossack Fonseca law firm in Panama reveal Gunnlaugsson and his wife, Anna Sigurlaug Pálsdóttir, bought a British Virgin Islands-based offshore company, Wintris Inc, in December 2007 to invest her share of the very substantial proceeds from the sale of her father’s business, Iceland’s only Toyota importer.
Gunnlaugsson sold his 50% stake to his wife for a symbolic $1 at the end of 2009, eight months after he was elected to parliament as an MP for the centre-right Progressive party. He failed, however, to declare an interest in the company either then or when he became prime minister in 2013.