British court rules in favor of Shehbaz Sharif in preliminary hearing of Daily Mail defamation case
Last updated on: 06 February,2021 01:25 pm
British court rules in favor of Shehbaz Sharif in preliminary hearing of Daily Mail defamation case
LONDON (Dunya News) - A British court has ruled that the Daily Mail’s report was defamatory and ruled in favor of PML-N president Shehbaz Sharif and son-in-law Ali Imran in a preliminary hearing. A more detailed hearing will follow, with the court declaring the Daily Mail article seriously damaging to the reputation of the two.
According to details, London High Court’s Justice Matthew Nicklin gave the initial ruling in a virtual hearing for the case between Daily Mail and Shehbaz Sharif.
Justice Nicklin said that that the words used in the David Rose authored article can be considered slanderous. He further said that the article showed the highest form of defamation, declaring the Shehbaz guilty of corruption on the basis of presumptions without any solid evidence to back up the claim.
When President PML-N Mian Shehbaz Sharif filed the suit against Daily Mail in the London High Court, he alleged that the article in the newspaper had caused serious harm to his personal and professional reputation.
According to court papers obtained by Dunya News, Shehbaz Sharif paid £10,528 in court fee but had not specified how much he was seeking in legal damages.
In January 2020, Shehbaz Sharif sent legal notices to Daily Mail and journalist David Rose after his story appeared in the newspaper in July 2019, accusing the former Punjab chief minister and his family of embezzling millions of pounds out of £500 million aid lent by the Department for International Development (DFID) for 2005 earthquake victims.
In his suit, Shehbaz Sharif said that the defendant failed to satisfy the most basic tenet of responsible journalism by making any reasonable attempt to obtain comment from him prior to publication.