The News UK reporter defamation case: Ex-PTI official apologises, agrees to pay £40,000

LONDON: A former official of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has issued a public apology and agreed to pay £40,000 in legal costs to this correspondent in the defamation case brought against three former officials of PTI UK at the London High Court.

After defending his position for nearly four years, Riaz Hussain finally accepted that he had defamed Geo journalist, Murtaza Ali Shah, and issued an apology and agreed to pay legal costs.

Riaz Hussain has now dropped out of the case by disassociating himself from the false allegations made against Mr Shah, leaving his co-defendants Mohammad Imran (northwest region’s former president) and Shanaz Saddique (also known as Shanaz Hussain, former northwest general secretary) to continue defending the cases brought against them.

The case is now at a critical stage. Riaz Hussain (former additional general secretary northwest region) made the following apology which he read out in Urdu and published on his Facebook page: “I wish to apologise to Murtaza Ali Shah, Chief Correspondent of Geo News and Associate Resident Editor of Jang Group of Newspapers in the UK. On 20 April 2020 I published a video on my Facebook account in which I alleged that Murtaza Ali Shah was corrupt and has been harming Pakistan by knowingly misleading people through his journalism. The High Court determined on 26 January 2023 that this allegation was defamatory of Mr Shah. I now wish to state clearly that I accept this allegation is false and untrue. Mr Shah is not corrupt. He has not harmed Pakistan or misled people through his journalism.

“On 20 April 2020, 22 April 2020 and 23 April 2020 I published a link to a petition in which it was alleged that Mr Shah has been misusing his position as a journalist by reporting news which he knows to be false and making allegations which he knows to be baseless with the aim of misleading his audience and garnering attention.

“The High Court determined that this allegation was also defamatory of Mr Shah. I now wish to state clearly that I also accept that this allegation is false and untrue. Mr Shah has not misused his position as a journalist, he has not reported news which he knew to be false nor has he made allegations which were baseless in order to mislead his audiences or garner attention.” “I unconditionally apologise to Mr Shah for the serious harm to his reputation which he has suffered and for the significant distress, and embarrassment which these publications have caused him. I have agreed to pay a substantial sum towards Mr Shah’s legal costs.”

Riaz Hussain’s apology and settlement came after the High Court last year ordered the three defendants to pay £23,115.60 towards the journalist’s legal costs following a strike out application. This sum has not been paid and the remaining defendants will be back before the court in September to face an application for debarring. The court has already issued a charging order on Shanaz Saddique’s property in favour of the journalist for the outstanding legal costs.

At the time of making the defamatory statements and running a smear campaign in March 2020, the three held powerful positions in the PTI UK even though PTI UK and Pakistan did not support the personalised smear campaign of the three: Mohammad Imran, Shanaz Saddique and Riaz Hussain.