Iceland official resigns over offshore holdings

Associated Press

LONDON

The leak of millions of records on offshore accounts claimed its first high-profile political casualty Tuesday as Iceland’s prime minister stepped aside amid outrage over revelations he had used such a shell company to shelter large sums while Iceland’s economy was in crisis.

Icelandic leader Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson is the first major figure brought down by the publication of the names of rich and powerful people linked to the leaks, dubbed the Panama Papers.

China and Russia, meanwhile, took the opposite approach, suppressing the news and rejecting any allegations of impropriety by government officials named in the leak of more than 11 million financial documents from a Panamanian law firm.

Officials in Ukraine, Argentina and other countries also are facing questions about possibly dubious offshore tax-avoidance schemes.

The reports are from a global group of news organizations working with the Washington-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. They have been processing records from the Mossack Fonseca law firm that were first leaked to Germany’s Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper.

The announcement that Gunnlaugsson was stepping down as leader of Iceland’s coalition government came from his deputy, Sigurdur Ingi Johannsson, who is also the country’s agriculture minister. It followed the refusal by Iceland’s president to dissolve parliament and call a new election, and after thousands of Icelanders protested outside the parliament building in Reykjavik.