Zulfi Bukhari wins first round of defamation case against Reham Khan

LONDON: Former special assistant to the prime minister on overseas Pakistanis, Zulfi Bukhari, has won the first round of a defamation case against Reham Khan, the broadcaster and former wife of Prime Minister Imran Khan.

At a trial of preliminary issues before the London High Court, Mrs Justice Karen Steyn determined the meaning of the eight publications complained of by Bukhari including a YouTube broadcast on Roosevelt Hotel by Reham Khan carrying four allegations as well as four tweets/retweets.

Mrs Justice Karen Steyn did not accept Reham Khan’s assessment of the publications’ meaning and accepted Bukhari’s submission instead. The defamation claim started over a YouTube broadcast made by Reham Khan on December 6, 2019 from the UK’s jurisdiction in which she alleged Zulfi Bukhari had a personal interest in the sale of Manhattan’s Roosevelt Hotel, owned by Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), and that Pakistan’s national assets were being sold to help people like Zulfi Bukhari in an act

of “robbery”.

Seeking Chase Level 1 determination, Barrister Claire Overman for Bukhari had argued that her client had been defamed at the highest level as he had been declared guilty of corruption and dishonesty while Reham Khan argued that the claim merited Chase Level 3 at the most, Zulfi Bukhari’s reputation was not harmed and that the publications were in the public interest.

In the claim papers filed in July last year at the London High Court, the PM’s former aide had alleged Reham Khan specifically targeted him in reference to the sale of Roosevelt Hotel.

In her defence, Reham Khan told the court that her December 6, 2019 Vlog was an effort to raise an alert in the public interest about the government plans about the iconic Roosevelt hotel in Manhattan. She said her broadcast was based on the information that the Aviation ministry had objected to the creation of a task force on Roosevelt.

Reham Khan maintained she only wanted to save Roosevelt Hotel and had a right to raise questions about the “performance or buffoonery of the government”.

She told the judge she had not used derogatory language and that her comments were not a personal attack to defame the claimant. She told the court that her objective was achieved and that the Roosevelt sale had been stopped.

Her Honour Judge Karen Steyn found that the natural and ordinary meaning of all eight publications contained a Chase Level 1 imputation; the natural and ordinary meaning of all eight publications were statements of facts apart from a part of the seventh publication which is an opinion (the rest of the seventh publication is a statement of fact); and that all eight publications were defamatory of Zulfi Bukhari at common law.

In her decision, the judge mentioned the libel victory of Jang and Geo’s Editor-in-Chief Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman against a private Pakistani broadcaster five years ago and said that the ruling made in the meaning trial of MSR’s case had set the precedent for Urdu language broadcast cases related to the UK’s jurisdiction.

In a statement, Reham Khan said: “I have no reason to harbour any personal vendetta against Zulfi. We parted on cordial terms. This however does not mean that I will not criticise the PTI government’s performance and plans that make no sense.” Barrister Claire Overman, it’s understood, will be taking further instructions.”