LONDON: A UK high court has awarded legal costs and damages of around GBP 75,000 to two London-based journalists after settling a defamation case in their favour.

The claimants had filed the lawsuit against two individuals and a law firm after they were accused of corruption, violence and hooliganism in a press release circulated via social media.

The defamation suit was initiated in 2019 after solicitor Ajaz Ahmed, his firm Pure Legal Solicitors, and Raja Usman Arshad held a press conference in London relating to the murder of British national Barrister Fahad Malik, who was gunned down in Islamabad in 2016.

Mr Arshad is the son of Raja Arshad, the main accused in the murder case.

At the start of the press conference, a group of protesters disrupted the event and accused Mr Arshad and the firm of covering up the murder.

In the aftermath of the press conference, Mr Ahmed and Mr Arshad circulated a press release via Whatsapp and other social media platforms in which they accused the journalists of orchestrating the protest on behalf of the slain barrister’s brother.

The UK High Court’s Mrs Justice Collins Rice ruled that Murtaza Ali Shah, the UK correspondent of Geo News and The News International, and his brother Mujtaba Ali Shah, a Hum News reporter in London, were defamed by the defendants.

In their statement after the verdict, the two journalists said the case highlighted the harassment, false allegations and threats that journalists face on a daily basis for merely doing their jobs.

Published in Dawn, December 28th, 2022