Daily Mail journalist awaits lawsuit by Shahbaz Sharif

LONDON: A journalist from Daily Mail, UK, David Rose has once again come up with claims of still not receiving any lawsuit from the former Punjab chief minister and the Opposition Leader in the National Assembly Shahbaz Sharif against his story exposing alleged thefts from the earthquake relief funds, local media reported on Tuesday.

David Rose, in his Twitter message, said, “Hello Pakistani friends. A lot of you have been asking if Shehbaz Sharif has commenced a lawsuit against me and my newspaper yet. He hasn’t.” While resharing his July 14’s story, the journalist said, “Sources tell me that investigations by NAB [National Accountability Bureau] and the Asset Recovery Unit into allegations against Shahbaz Sharif have continued with some vigour since my article was published. This may explain why he hasn’t filed a lawsuit: they have been keeping him busy.”

Shahbaz Sharif had claimed to serve a legal notice to the newspaper on July 26, alleging it as a ‘politically motived’ report. He had also shared copy of the legal notice in his Twitter message.

Later on August 23, British journalist, David Rose of the Daily Mail had debunked a series of tweets directed towards him and the news publishers by Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) President Mian Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif.

The leader of the opposition in the National Assembly, taking to the social networking website Twitter, claimed that the British news publisher and the journalist associated with them, i.e. David Rose had failed to respond to his legal notice sent prior citing defamation and libel.

The politician wrote on the micro-blogging website: “Daily Mail stated last month that they would respond to our legal notice on or before 22Aug & journalist David Rose tweeted on 17Aug that it would b “shortly”. My lawyers, however, still have not received a substantive response from DailyMail in defence of their claims against me.”

To this, Rose responded, “I’m only going to make one comment on Shahbaz Sharif’s recent statements.” “He [Shahbaz] complains the earthquake was in 2005 before he became CM. But according to evidence already aired in a Pakistani court, the alleged thefts from the quake relief fund were in 2009 and 2011. Refutation?”