LONDON, January 30: Pakistan Muslim League (N) leader and former Punjab chief minister Shehbaz Sharif on Thursday formally launched a defamation suit against journalist David Rose and Daily Mail & General Trust (DMGT) – the publishers of the Mail Online and Mail on Sunday.
The case has been filed at the London High Court.
The disclosure of formal court action was made at a press conference at the offices of British law firm Carter-Ruck by Alasdair Pepper and Antonia Foster, who are representing Shehbaz in his legal case against the paper.
Shehbaz was present with his lawyers at the press conference where the announcement was made.
Pepper confirmed that the defamation claim has been issued at the London High Court’s Queen’s Bench Division against defendants DMGT and David Rose, author of the story.
He confirmed that Mail Publications are in receipt of the claim form.
It is understood that the case will go to trial before a judge at the Royal Court of Justice in under a year as the minimum time to get a trial date is between nine months to a year.
The lawyer said that Carter-Ruck had decided to move the court after failing to get a substantive response from the newspaper in several months, despite repeated requests.
Pepper argued that the article in the Mail, followed by a social media campaign launched by journalist David Rose, was gravely defamatory of Shehbaz, carrying utterly false allegations that Shehbaz misappropriated UK taxpayers’ money in the form of DfID aid intended for the victims of the devastating 2005 earthquake in Pakistan.
He noted that the DfID has already rubbished the claims made by newspaper as ‘false and without any foundation’, vindicating Shehbaz’s stance that he has never been involved in misappropriation of funds.
He said the article was a “politically motivated campaign” against the leader of the opposition in the national assembly by the incumbent Government of Pakistan.
He said that Shehbaz is valued highly for his professional and personal reputation and he intends to clear his name of these allegations.
Speaking at the press conference, Shehbaz said that he was determined to prove that allegations against him were false, baseless and politically motivated to malign him. -Agencies
He said it was clear that the Mail journalist was used by the PTI government by granting the journalist “exclusive access to some of the tempered results of a high-level probe ordered by [Prime Minister Imran] Khan” including a “confidential investigation report” and unusual access to interview “key witnesses” held on remand in jail.
He said the allegations were never properly put to him in advance of publication.
Article in question
In an article published on July 14, 2019 authored by David Rose, the Mail on Sunday had alleged that Shehbaz Sharif and his family stole British taxpayers’ money given to Pakistan’s Earthquake Relief and Reconstruction Authority (ERRA) set up to help the victims of the 2005 Pakistan earthquake.
The paper has alleged that Shehbaz Sharif was involved in corrupting the funds given to Pakistan by British taxpayers.
Shehbaz had first served a legal notice to the newspaper on July 26, alleging that David Rose’s report was “politically motivated”.
He alleged that since the publication of the story, David Rose tweeted several times challenging Shehbaz Sharif to take action against his paper.
On many occasions, he responded to users on the social media site noting that Shehbaz had taken no action so far.
DfID had separately refuted the claims made by The Mail on Sunday.
Rejecting the assumption that UK taxpayers’ cash, meant for earthquake victims, was stolen by Shehbaz, DfID maintained that, “our robust systems protected UK taxpayers from fraud”.
In a statement, a DFID spokesperson said, “The UK’s financial support to ERRA over this period was for payment by results – which means we only gave money once the agreed work, which was primarily focused on building schools, was completed, and the work audited and verified.”
