Geo reporter Murtaza Ali Shah, brother win defamation case in UK High Court

• Murtaza, Mujtaba won case against a solicitor, a law firm.
• Brothers were accused of orchestrating a murder attack.
• The court awarded £75,000 in damages to the brothers.

LONDON: Geo TV and The News International's London correspondent Murtaza Ali Shah and his journalist brother have won a major defamation case at the UK High Court over false and malicious allegations about them on social media sites.

In one of the first few cases in Britain relating to defamation and slander by the use of social media platforms, especially WhatsApp, Twitter, and fake photo-shopped news, the UK High Court’s Senior Judge, Justice Collins Rice, ruled that Murtaza Ali Shah and Syed Mujtaba Ali Shah were defamed by England and Wales solicitor Ajaz Ahmed, his law firm Pure Legal Solicitors and Raja Usman Arshad, son of Raja Arshad who has been convicted of killing British Pakistani national Barrister Fahad Malik.

Justice Collins Rice awarded legal costs and £75,000 in damages to both Murtaza Ali Shah and Mujtaba Ali Shah. The defendants had several opportunities to settle the case out-of-court through negotiations – without going to the trial – but they chose to abuse the court process by refusing to engage for nearly three years.

Barrister Mr David Lemer who represented the two journalists at the trial said: “I am glad that Murtaza Ali Shah and Mujtaba Ali Shah have been able to succeed in their claims for defamation and that these long-standing proceedings have been brought to an end.”

The case

The legal battle started after a press conference held in London on January 5, 2019, by the law firm Pure Legal Solicitors, its director and solicitor Ajaz Ahmed and Raja Usman Arshad concerning the 2016 murder in Islamabad of British-Pakistani Barrister Fahad Malik. 

At the start of the press conference on January 5, a group of around two dozen protestors disrupted the press conference making accusations against Raja Usman Arshad and the law firm for attempting to cover up the murder of Fahad Malik and providing a fig leaf to the murder accused Raja Arshad.

In the following days, Ajaz Ahmed and Raja Usman used WhatsApp and social media platforms to make several patently false, defamatory, and serious allegations against the journalists, accusing them of orchestrating the attack on behalf of Jawad Sohrab Malik, the brother of Fahad Malik. 

Several other allegations were also made in the dangerous campaign.

The defamatory press release, disseminated in both English and Urdu, alleged that the two journalists were the ringleaders of violent disorder at the Central London press conference organized by Raja Usman Arshad for his father, who was in Adiala Jail at that time. 

They further alleged that the journalists disrupted and hijacked the press conference and violently assaulted, harassed, and intimidated people who attended. 

None of this was true, but because of these false and despicable allegations, the journalists, in particular Murtaza Ali Shah, were attacked, and harm was caused to them and their family members.

The legal battle 

The journalists immediately instructed lawyers who sent pre-action letters and then issued proceedings at the Royal Courts of Justice on January 6, 2020.

At the start of the case, Ajaz Ahmed, Raja Usman Arshad, and Merseyside-based Pure Legal Solicitors Limited jointly defended the case through solicitors’ firm Kingswell Watts Solicitors, who submitted a defense on behalf of their clients. 

Lawyers for the journalists applied to strike out the defenses of truth, honest opinion, and statement on a matter of public interest on the grounds they were defectively pleaded and were successful. 

The defendants then filed a further amended defense, but the journalists’ lawyers applied for parts of the amended defense to be struck out for non-compliance with the rules and were successful again.

Raja Usman Arshad stopped engaging with the London High Court orders and procedures when he returned to Pakistan. Kingswell Watts Solicitors also have yet to respond as the case progressed.

At one stage during the proceedings, Justice Nicklin, in charge of defamation cases at the High Court, got involved and made an order in which he stated: “There appears to be a history of non-compliance and non-engagement by the defendants. If that continues, they will find that sanctions will be imposed to their disadvantage.”

At the trial before Justice Collins Rice, the journalists’ lawyers made further applications seeking a strike out of the complete defense and a debarring order, on which they were successful. 

The judge also ruled that the two claimants were defamed. 

He said: “I am satisfied based on my preliminary and provisional views that what is pleaded by the claimants on natural and ordinary meaning is neither ‘wildly extravagant and impossible,’ nor ‘clearly not defamatory in their tendency’ given the accusations of violence.” 

He found that the test for serious harm to reputation had been met.

The judge condemned the conduct of Ajaz Ahmed, Pure Legal Solicitors, and Raja Usman Arshad as “oppressive” and full of “consistent failures.” 

“The defendants’ conduct of this litigation has been characterized by persistent failure to engage properly and fairly with rules of procedure and multiple and serious failures to comply with the orders and directions of the court. The defendants have been given repeated opportunities to re-establish their participation in the litigation on a satisfactory footing and to prepare for a fair trial of the claim. Still, they have not acknowledged and taken those opportunities. Nor have they offered any good reason for failing to do so. They have been given clear and repeated warnings of the jeopardy that places them in,” he ruled.

“This course of conduct has been wasteful of court time and public resources and wholly unfair to the claimants. It has denied them the opportunity to make their case for dismissal promptly. The effect on the claimants is, therefore, highly prejudicial. It has not only escalated the cost of these proceedings in an unwarranted manner but kept the claimants out of funds to which the order entitles them. I am satisfied that the claimants’ case is properly pleaded.”

Ajaz Ahmed and Pure Legal Solicitors had applied at the last minute to vacate the trial. 

The journalists’ lawyers challenged the evidence. 

However, Justice Collins Rice, while expressing sympathy for Ajaz Ahmed, declined the application as the evidence before she was unsatisfactory.

Ajaz Ahmed, Raja Usman Arshad, and Pure Legal Solicitors did not appeal Justice Collins Rice's ruling in July 2022. As a result, the lawyers for the journalists obtained charging orders on two properties in which Ajaz Ahmed was interested. 

The lawyers will apply separately to recover legal costs, which have already run into six figures. They will also seek sales orders so the properties can be sold and the equity released to pay for the damages and legal costs.

The claimants were represented initially by Counsel William Bennett KC, who represented Duke of Sussex Prince Harry in his successful claim against Mail on Sunday in early 2021, and then Counsel David Lemer, who achieved the successful outcome for Shahs.

The journalists welcomed the court decision, saying: “We stand vindicated, and we are thankful to our legal team, Stone White Solicitors, Counsel William Bennett KC, and Counsel David Lemer and the court for upholding the truth.

We faced malicious and false allegations, and it took us over three years to get justice, but we continued to fight the case to establish that there should be no place and tolerance for defamation of any kind. They put our lives at risk through these allegations.”