Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s former wife, Reham Khan , has won “substantial” damages and received an apology from a Pakistani news channel over defamatory allegations by a government minister during a show last year.
At a hearing in the High Court in London on Monday, Justice Matthew Nicklin was informed about the apology and undisclosed damages agreed between the parties.
Reham, a British national of Pakistani-origin, launched the legal proceedings over a broadcast entitled On the Front with Kamran Shahid’ on Dunya TV in June 2018, during which she said Sheikh Rasheed, the current Federal Minister of Railways in Pakistan, made very serious and entirely false allegations against her.
“The most serious allegation that he made was to claim that our client had colluded with her ex-husband’s political rivals, the Pakistan Muslim League, and accepted a substantial payment from or on behalf of its leader, Mr Shehbaz Sharif, in return for writing her autobiography, said Alex Cochrane from Hamlins LLP, who represented Reham in the Royal Courts of Justice in London.
Dunya TV has now made a full and unequivocal public apology to our client and it has accepted that she never received any payments from Mr. Shehbaz Sharif or anyone in the Pakistan Muslim League for her book. Dunya TV has also given an undertaking not to repeat these false allegations about our client and they have paid her substantial damages and all her legal costs, he said.
The court heard that during the telecast last year, Reham, a journalist and broadcaster, was also likened to a historical Pakistani female figure known as Budhan Bai, who was a well-known courtesan, as part of a series of slurs upon her reputation.
