With a bust of Latin America鈥檚 independence hero Simon Bolivar in the background, Panama鈥檚 President Juan Carlos Varela gives a televised statement to the nation, in Panama City, Wednesday, April 6, 2016. Varela spoke about the millions of confidential documents that were leaked from a Panama-based law firm, coined the 鈥減anama papers,鈥� revealing details of how some of the globe鈥檚 richest people funnel their assets into secretive shell companies set up in Panama and in other lightly regulated jurisdictions. AP
BERLIN 鈥� The German newspaper that first obtained the so-called Panama Papers, a vast trove of documents on offshore accounts, says it won鈥檛 publish all the files.
Sueddeutsche Zeitung said Thursday that the complete set of 11.5 million documents 鈥渨on鈥檛 be made available to the public or to law enforcement agencies.鈥�
It says authorities have legal powers to obtain such documents from those suspected of wrongdoing, and in many cases there鈥檚 no public interest in revealing companies鈥� or individuals鈥� offshore business dealings.
The Munich-based paper received the documents from an unidentified source more than a year ago and shared at least parts of them with dozens of other media outlets around the world, who reported the story in coordination with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.
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