Andrew Caldecott, a lawyer for the Associated Papers, said that the evidence against the president of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) was “pretty limited” whilst referring to the Shahbaz Sharif vs Daily Mail defamation case, Geo reported on Friday.
The Mail and Mail on Sunday lawyer said that “actual detailed evidence against Shehbaz Sharif” about corruption and the money-laundering allegation is “pretty limited and based on assumptions”, adding that Shehbaz “lives in a palace” in Lahore.
Caldecott, while presenting his arguments virtually before the London High Court, asserted that the element of “political witch hunt” cannot be ruled out. However, he added that this does not mean there is no money laundering involved, as alleged in David Rose’s article.
Justice Matthew Nicklin, who was presiding over the case, said that he had read the article in question and the materials presented to him by the counsels for both Daily Mail and Shehbaz, but clarified he had stayed away from the ongoing cases against the PML-N president within Pakistan “because that’s not for me to read or know. I would rather not know what’s happening in Pakistan.”
The lawyer for the publication, to this, explained that the money-laundering investigation had started in Pakistan, leading to the discovery of a huge amount, and quoted Adviser to the Prime Minister Shahzad Akbar’s statement.
He further said that it was also revealed that Department for International Development (DFID) funds were embezzled. “The investigation is now moving on in Pakistan to find the source of these funds.”
The lawyer conceded that the investigation was “far from complete”, admitting that the Daily Mail “has very limited information.”
“Having established the scale of money laundering, the investigation is now moving to the next phase,” he added.
Adrienne Page, representing Shehbaz, took the court through the entire article and maintained that it this publication had alleged that Shehbaz was “guilty of corruption” and had ties to the UK government.
She stated that the article was defamatory from start to finish while simultaneously lacking evidence but making baseless allegations of fraud and money-laundering.
“The Daily Mail article implicated the former chief minister Punjab Shehbaz Sharif as involved in suspected theft of UK taxpayers money. That was hugely damaging and ashamed Mr Sharif in the eyes of the British readers and to readers in Pakistan, a country which benefits hugely from the UK’s aid to its country,” she maintained.
Referring to the claims of the published piece as “a grave allegation,” Page pointed out that the allegations were written in a way such that they were portrayed as facts.
“Whose money has been stolen?” she questioned. “Money laundering is criminal misconduct, but who was victimised and where is the proof? Where the stolen money? Where is the evidence? Where’s the evidence of kickbacks and misappropriation?”
Refuting the publication’s lawyer, Page stated that the accused’s son, Hamza Shehbaz, had denied these allegations, but the paper relied on Akbar and Transparency International’s statements to slander her client.
“The headlines, the captions, the build-up of the article, Mail on Sunday’s campaign against overseas funding, end of the article. This was all defamatory. This is the heart of it all that that claimant is a beneficiary of the laundered money,” she told the court.
The Mail’s lawyer defended the publication of the article and said that it was in the public interest and it always happens that investigations are carried out after such stories are published pointing out wrongdoings.
It is pertinent to mention here that the paper had alleged that Shehbaz was involved in corrupting the funds given to Pakistan by the British taxpayers.
The report had said that the DFID poured more than £500 million of the UK taxpayers’ money into Punjab in the form of aid during Shehbaz’s tenure as chief minister.
