BEIRUT: Prime Minister Najib Mikati has denied any wrongdoing after he was named in the Pandora Papers among political and financial officials with wealth hidden in offshore tax havens.

The Pandora Papers, published on Sunday, are based on 11.9 million confidential files leaked to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalism (ICIJ), which found links to more than 330 politicians and public officials, including 35 current and former national leaders, in 91 countries and territories.

The Papers show that Mikati owns a Panama-based offshore company he used to buy property in Monaco worth $10 million.

Mikati issued a statement late Monday in response to the leaks, saying: Since its inception, M1 Group (the Mikati family business) and all its subsidiaries around the world have upheld a separation between public and private.

The statement added that the family business was compliant with global standards and consulted auditors regularly. It also said the Mikati family fortune had been amassed prior to Mikatis involvement in Lebanese politics, and that his assets had been disclosed to the Lebanese Constitutional Council.

"Therefore, the source of wealth of the Mikati family had been well-scrutinized by the concerned bodies and entities that were piloting the Initial Public Offering (IPO) - thus certifying that the same source of wealth was well-documented, legal, legitimate and audited; and that it derived from the family business' global activities that preceded the entry of Najib Mikati into politics in Lebanon.

"The Monaco property, among other assets around the world, specifically mentioned in the 'Papers', is not the only property owned via a corporate entity," The statement added. "Most family assets and properties fall under the same corporate principle of management and good governance. It is a common and lawful business practice that, in case many family members share the same assets, to organize the ownership via legal entities that offer flexibility as well as corporate, financial and fiscal advantages."

Mikati, 65, began building his Investcom business in the midst of Lebanon's 1975-90 Civil War. He sold his telecoms interests to South Africa's MTN Group for $5.5 billion in 2006.

In 2007 he founded the M1 Group, which has various investment interests. In July this year, Norwegian telecoms operator Telenor sold its Myanmar operations to M1 Group for $105 million.

Mikati's statement said "the underlying logic behind the Papers drifted toward transforming most, if not all, of those mentioned into suspicious individuals &/or companies, by the mere fact of being listed in there a logic that goes against the free-market business practices and good governance, in liberal economies, principles that the Mikati family defends.

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