ISLAMABAD: Special Adviser to PM on Interior and Accountability Mirza Shahzad Akbar on Saturday rejected “premature claims” of victory put forward by Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) in a case pertaining to embezzlement of foreign aid money against the family of National Assembly opposition leader and party’s president Shahbaz Sharif.
In a 2019 story, Daily Mail, a British publication, claimed members of the Sharif family were involved in large-scale money laundering of funds provided by now-defunct Department for International Development (DFID) for the poor and the rehabilitation of the victims of the deadly 2005 earthquake.
Subsequently, Sharif — through Carter-Ruck Solicitors, a London-based legal firm — launched a defamation suit against the publication.
Following a preliminary hearing to decide the meaning of the words complained of, Queen’s Bench Division of High Court of Justice, London on Friday observed the claims fitted into Chase Level 1 defamation, meaning Sharif is guilty of wrongdoing (as opposed to a meaning that there are reasonable grounds to suspect him of wrongdoing).
The publisher, Justice Matthew Nicklin said, would have to prove that he is guilty of the act he has been accused of in the story.
The preliminary hearing is not a ruling on the lawsuit. The trial in the coming months will determine if the story was in fact defamatory according to the British legal system.
Responding to the ruling, PML-N sought Sharif’s release with party’s central spokesperson Marriyum Aurangzeb claiming the observation was “proof of Shahbaz Sharif’s innocence and Imran Khan’s false cases” against the former.
Addressing a press conference, Akbar accused PML-N said Aurangzeb was “still running the ministry of misinformation and disinformation.”
He further said he could not understand why PML-N Vice President “Maryam [Nawaz] and Shahbaz Sharif’s families have so much anger against Daily Mail.”
Akbar also challenged Sharif to “file a defamation suit against me in London and I will present the evidence [against the former].”
Aurangzeb, in a press conference on Saturday, repeated her claims saying the “faces of those who sought to throw dirt on Shahbaz Sharif had been further blackened.”
