Defamation case: Mail’s defence against Imran Ali based on NAB allegations

LONDON: The Associated Newspaper Limited (ANL) has in its defamation case defence that former Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s son-in-law Imran Ali Yousaf knowingly received money from Ikram Naveed, who was a senior executive of Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (ERRA) and involved in high level of corruption.

The publisher of Mail on Sunday and Daily Mail has submitted two separate defence papers for Shehbaz Sharif and Imran Ali Yousaf, who was accused by the paper in David Rose's report in July 2019 that they were both involved in corruption, but focused on Ali Imran Yousaf and Shehbaz Sharif for benefiting from the UK's aid to Pakistan through the Department for International Fund (DfID). The DfID immediately issued a rebuttal saying that its funds were audited and not corrupted in Pakistan. Following the publication of the article, Shehbaz Sharif and his son-in-law separately issued defamation claims. The ANL has now filed its defence after a delay of one year.

The defence relies entirely on allegations that were first made by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and arrest warrants of Yousaf were issued too. He left Pakistan in 2018 and has not returned ever since, residing in west London with his wife and children.

In its defence, the ANL levels allegations against Imran Yousaf based on his dealings with Ikram Naveed, who was Finance Director of ERRA from February 2009 to March 2013, and also links him with the alleged money-laundering of the Sharif family via his marriage to Shehbaz Sharif's daughter Rabia Sharif. Daily Mail had alleged that Ikram Naveed stole ERRA’s funds which were given after the 8 October 2005 earthquake that struck Kashmir and killed nearly 90,000 people.

The ANL defence says: “International donors to the ERRA have included the UK Government via the Department for International Development (DFID), which disbursed £53.3m in the relief phase of the effort and which pledged a further £70m over the first 3 years following the earthquake for a range of reconstruction and rehabilitation (R&R) activities for which international funding was required. In July 2009, the DFID’s commitment to ERRA’s R&R activities was increased from £70m to £84m, bringing DFID’s total funding in response to the earthquake to £139.3m over the first 5 years. DFID has continued to fund ERRA subsequently.”

The ANL defence says that Ikram Naveed “unlawfully exploited” and embezzled very substantial sums in the region of nearly £3 million and then these funds were used by him to acquire several properties.

It says that Imran Ali Yousaf, who owned Ali & Company and Ali & Fatima Developers, knew by July 2011 Naveed was “embezzling funds from ERRA, a discovery which would have been confirmed by the extensive property acquisitions which Mr Naveed had begun to make and which far exceeded any legitimate source of income (including his then-salary as Director of Finance at ERRA). He persuaded Mr Naveed to purchase three large units at the rate of PKR4,500 per square foot in the Ali Trade Centre development project and then entered into an arrangement with Mr Naveed by which Mr Naveed agreed to embezzle further public funds from ERRA for the joint benefit”.

It says that Ikram Naveed made payments to Ali & Company on 15 July 2011, which contained earthquake relief and reconstruction funds (£197,482.57) and made more payments on 6 September 2012 and 12 March 2013 for the sums of PKR 20.250m and PKR 13.997m were transferred to a bank account held by Ali & Company. The ANL defence says that further payments were made to Imran Ali Yousaf’s company by the companies controlled by Ikram Naveed and these were for £71,717.83, £5,564.31, £5,409.30, £175,036.60, PKR 900,000, £34,885.26, £45,678.57,£15,025.84, £60,103.38, £40,051.69 and so on. The ANL says it will argue that Ali Imran Yousaf "must have known" about the dealings of Mr Ikram Naveed. It says that Yousaf, in April 2018, appeared before the Accountability Court in Pakistan in respect of his role in Mr Naveed's embezzlement of funds from ERRA and later on fled Pakistan for London without giving answers to NAB. The ANL defence links him with Shehbaz Sharif and others through association and repeats the defence that it made in case of Shehbaz Sharif’s defamation claim.

It makes mention of Imran Yousaf’s wife Rabia Yousaf who is named in the NAB Reference against Shehbaz Sharif and his family members, which makes allegations of money laundering and wire transfers against all family members.

The defence says: "Rabia was one of the members of the Sharif Family who enjoyed very substantial increases in the levels of assets held in their names which far exceeded any legitimate sources of income" and "the very marked increase in Rabia’s income between 2008 and 2010 would have benefited the Claimant as a consequence of their relationship and would have been readily apparent to him, not least because it was reflected in increases in her expenditure, including in her ability to contribute to familial, household and business finances from which the Claimant also benefited as a result of their marriage and joint business interests". The ANL defence denies causing harm to Imran Ali Yousaf and rejects the case that he was treated unfairly. On 14 July 2019, the Mail on Sunday had claimed in an article published by David Rose that Imran Ali Yousaf had received £1 million, which he knew were embezzled from funds of Pakistan's Earthquake Relief and Reconstruction Authority (ERRA). Imran Yousaf has insisted that "there is evidence available” of him not knowing about the origin of funds and had no relation with Ikram Naveed, the former ERRA executive. He has sued the paper for damages and apology.