London: A British High Court judge has accepted that PMLN leader Nasir Butt did nothing wrong by filming Judge Arshad Malik, rejecting Pakistani TV’s defence.
Butt secretly filmed Judge Arshad, who confessed to sentencing Nawaz Sharif to 10 years in jail in the Al-Azizia reference, claiming that he was blackmailed through a video before the 2018 elections. Nawaz Sharif and Maryam Nawaz were forced to jail at any cost.
In a landmark ruling, Ms Justice Heather Williams rejected the “truth defence” put forward by JEE News lawyers that Nawaz Sharif was sentenced to 10 years in the Al-Azizia reference, as false and corrupt. was The lawyers said that Judge Arshad Malik is an honest man who blackmailed to help Nawaz Sharif through Bit and reporting the video scandal is in public interest.
The judge described the evidence as “a patently weak and unsustainable defense of the truth”, and expressed his displeasure that the defendant persisted with it.
Nasir Butt has so far won three defamation cases against three TV channels in out-of-court settlements. However, it was the first case related to Nawaz Sharif’s conviction, Pakistani politics and the Judge Arshad Malik video scandal to be tried before an English judge involving a trial of evidence.
Justice Heather Williams has also banned the TV company through an injunction from repeating the same allegations against Nasir Butt, Nawaz Sharif and Arshad Malik scandal in the UK.
In her 36-page judgment, Justice Heather Williams ruled that the broadcast had defamed Nasir Butt, rejecting the TV channel’s arguments against Nasir.
The judge ruled: “The defense of truth fails because the defendant has not shown that the defamatory sting of the allegation, namely that the claimant threatened and attempted to bribe the judge, was sufficiently was true. The defense of publication on the issue of public interest fails, because the defendant has not shown that any relevant person at the time believed that the publication of the words complained of would be in the public interest. is and in any event, if such a belief was held, was not a reasonable belief in all the circumstances. And accordingly, the claimant’s claim for defamation is established. I award him £35,000 as compensatory damages and I a I will issue an injunction to prevent future repetition of the contempt.
When the channel made the allegations on 11 July 2019, its current owner had not taken it from its previous owners in the UK. Nasir Butt’s case was against a UK company unrelated to the Pakistan Istakham Party (IPP) leader that now owns Samaa in the UK and Pakistan.
Samaa UK had alleged in the UK that Nasir Butt was involved in threatening and bribing the late accountability court judge who sentenced former prime minister Nawaz Sharif in the disproportionate assets case.
During the broadcast, the channel made several accusations against Nawaz Sharif, Nasir Butt and their associates.
Analyst and Samaa employee Adnan Adil accused Nasir Butt of intimidating the judge and accused him of conspiring against Pakistan’s judicial system.
He had said: “How are these conspiracies being thwarted?” Pakistani people should know about this conspiracy. Is our judicial system and the state system itself sold? Can someone sabotage our system through conspiracies? People should know what conspiracy happened. They should know how these roles were involved. They should get exemplary punishment for this.
In his case before the court, Sama, the lawyer of the former owner of Sama TV, relied on the affidavit of Judge Arshad Malik accusing Nasir Butt of corruption and manipulating the judiciary to help Nawaz Sharif. Who was in jail when Butt filmed the judge.
The channel told the court about the 2016 Mossack Fonseca leaks – known as the Panama Papers – and the revelation that Nawaz Sharif and family owned properties and companies worth millions of dollars in Britain.
The channel told the court that Nawaz Sharif was removed from the post of Prime Minister by the Supreme Court of Pakistan after he was found dishonest and failed to show interest in the job at Dubai-based Capital FZE and the same. Because of this, Nawaz Sharif was sentenced.
The channel told the court that Nawaz Sharif’s sentence was justified and according to Judge Arshad Malik’s admission, Nasir Butt had given physical harm and threats and Nasir Butt told the judge that to avoid punishment in the murder cases, he wanted to kill Nawaz Sharif. A lot of debt. that he had committed.
The channel told the court that Nasir Butt, according to Judge Arshad Malik, is ready to go to any extent to help Nawaz Sharif’s legal cases.
It also told the court that Nasir Butt should be held to the highest standards of integrity, especially in light of past allegations of his conduct, as he was also on the FIA’s list of criminal offences. There were allegations of threats and corruption.
Nasir Butt’s case was based on the fact that the court acquitted Nawaz Sharif of the charges related to the purchase of four flats in London, but he was not able to prove the source of income for owning a steel mill in Saudi Arabia. What was the penalty? He was neither owner nor beneficiary.
Dismissing Samaa UK’s case, Nasir Butt’s lawyer told the judge that it is now a proven fact that Nawaz Sharif was rigged in the 2018 election and the judges were manipulated by the then establishment to remove Nawaz Sharif. was sentenced in these cases by power
His lawyer told the court that retired Pakistani judges had also said the same and former Prime Minister Imran Khan had recently admitted that the then Army Chief General (retd) Qamar Javed Bajwa had controlled the entire system and Used to run the show – Sharif has been making this accusation ever since. 2018.
Nasir Butt told the judge that he did not believe for a second that Nawaz Sharif had done anything wrong and in fact all the evidence supports this fact.
He told the judge that I made the video because I thought it was important to bring out Nawaz Sharif’s innocence. Judge Malik would never have agreed to be filmed and would have been uneasy if he had known I was filming him. Filming Judge Malik’s admission was in the public interest and in the interest of justice. I was uncovering one of the greatest stories of injustice and miscarriage of justice.
Nasir Butt told the court that he arranged for Sharif to meet the late judge at Jati Amra where the judge apologized to Sharif and said that he had no choice.
Justice Heather Williams ruled that the defendant had not proved that the claimant threatened and attempted to bribe the judge was sufficiently true and “the defendant had not come close to showing that the claimant had Threatened the judge and tried to bribe him”. .
The judge said it was clear that the TV channel editorial did not take any reasonable steps to get Nasir Butt’s version and rejected the defendants’ arguments that they had tried to contact the plaintiff.
“The claimant has established his claim in defamation,” the judge said. I am down. I also accept that his reputation suffered more because he is a prominent figure in the Pakistani community living in Pakistan and in the UK. I accept that the errors in the broadcast were highlighted, as As I have previously stated, this award should be sufficient to vindicate the claimant’s credibility in circumstances where the defendant has persisted with a patently weak and unsustainable defense of truth.
Barrister Rasheed Ahmed, lawyer for Samaa UK, and barrister David Lamar, lawyer for Nasir Butt, both made landmark defamation judgments in the London High Court case in 2016 between Jang/Jio Editor-in-Chief Mir Shakeelur Rehman and ARY Network Ltd. depended on This decision has become a benchmark for determining defamatory meaning in the context of Urdu television broadcasts in the UK. Both of them argued before the judge that this is a case in Urdu language broadcasting that has set a standard for how such cases should be treated when Urdu language translations are involved.
In December 2021, finding the meaning of the case defamatory, Sen. J. referred to the case of Mir Shakeel-ur-Rehman that the words complained of meant that the claimant had threatened the judge and offered a bribe. tried to The words complained of were a statement of fact. And the words complained of defamed the claimant at common law.
