ISLAMABAD: Renowned media law firm Carter Ruck has started formal legal action on behalf of Shahbaz Sharif against the British newspaper the Mail on Sunday, online news site Mail Online and its journalist David Rose about a “politically motivated” article published on Sunday, 14 July 2019.
The paper in its report had suggested that Shehbaz Sharif and his family stole British taxpayers’ money given to Pakistan’s Earthquake Relief and Reconstruction Authority (ERRA) set up to help the victims of the 2005 Pakistan earthquake.
Shahbaz Sharif’s English lawyers said in a statement on Friday morning that he was “utterly appalled by these allegations”.
Shahbaz Sharif said: “It is disgusting for the Mail to claim that I stole money from a fund for earthquake victims. Clearly were there any evidence in support of this, or any of the other allegations contained in the article against me, then I would have been arrested and charged. This appears to be yet another politically motivated campaign against me and my family by the current government of Pakistan, which, according to the article, granted the journalist ‘exclusive access to some of the results of a high-level probe ordered by Khan’ including a ‘confidential investigation report’ and highly unusually access to ‘interview key witnesses held on remand in jail’. At no stage were the allegations properly put to me in advance of publication. Had they been, I would have pointed out – among other matters – that at the time of the earthquake in 2005, I was not even in Pakistan but living in exile in the UK. I value my professional and personal reputation very highly and will do all that is necessary to clear my name of these terrible allegations, and will pursue this claim through the courts of England and Wales, if that is what is required.”
