Claim: A video of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif (PM) in London is being shared on social media.
Users are claiming that the video depicts the Premier sitting in a court in the United Kingdom (UK) where he and his son-in-law, Imran Ali Yousaf, are being panelised in the Daily Mail defamation case.
Shehbaz Sharif had sued the Daily Mail in 2019 for an article which had suggested that he along with Yousaf “stole British taxpayers’ money” given to Earthquake Relief and Reconstruction Authority (ERRA) set up to help the victims of the 2005 Pakistan earthquake.
In this particular video, the man sitting next to Sharif can be heard saying, “Mr Sharif misappropriated UK taxpayers’ money and particular government aid intended for the victims of the devasting 2005 earthquake in Pakistan.”
Fact: The video is of a press conference held by Sharif himself in 2020, in which he formally launched a defamation suit against journalist David Rose and Daily Mail and Associated Newspaper Limited (ANL) — the publishers of Mail Online.
The disclosure of formal court action was made at a press conference at the offices of British law firm Carter-Ruck by Alasdair Pepper and Antonia Foster, who are representing Shehbaz in his legal case against the paper. Shehbaz was present with his lawyers at the press conference where the announcement was made.
The lawyer said that Carter-Ruck had decided to move the court after failing to get a substantive response from the newspaper despite several requests over a passage of several months. He said that in nearly seven months the Mail had refused to engage with Sharif’s lawyer.
Pepper argued that the article in the Mail, followed by a social media campaign launched by journalist David Rose, was gravely defamatory for Shehbaz, carrying false allegations that he misappropriated UK taxpayers’ money in the form of aid intended for the victims of the devastating 2005 earthquake in Pakistan.
Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) official Twitter account also corrected the false claim and blamed Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) for spreading “lies”.
Verdict: FALSE
