Shehbaz, in a tweet, said they had decided to file law suit against the newspaper. The fabricated and misleading story was published at the behest of Imran Khan and Shahzad Akbar, he said, adding, “We will also launch legal proceedings against them.”
He also mentioned that Imran was yet to respond to the three similar cases he had filed against him for defamation.
Similarly, Marriyum Aurangzeb, who is the PML-N spokesperson, in a statement said they would not only take legal action against the newspaper but also Prime Minister Imran Khan and his advisor Shahzad Akbar.
The baseless fabricated report was tantamount to defamation and those involved in damaging the dignity of others would have answer in the court of law, she added.
Earlier, UK’s Department For International Development (DFID) rejected the claims made by the Mail on Sunday, saying, “The Mail on Sunday provides little substantial evidence to support its headline.”
“The Mail on Sunday provides little substantial evidence to support its headline,” the DFID stressed.
The UK international development agency noted, “It [the newspaper] says investigators in Pakistan ‘are convinced that some of the allegedly stolen money came from DFID-funded aid projects’ without providing any substantial evidence this was the case with the earthquake fund.”
It is worth nothing that although portrayed as investigative report, the news item clearly relies on the materials provided and the claims made by the Pakistani investigators, such as NAB.
And the newspaper itself admits that it has been campaigning against the UK giving aid to foreign countries. “Last week, The Mail on Sunday – which has campaigned against Britain’s policy of spending 0.7 per cent of national income, currently about £14 billion a year, on foreign aid – was given exclusive access [by NAB] to some of the results of a high-level probe ordered by Khan, who won elections last year. We were also able to interview key witnesses held on remand in jail, including a UK citizen Aftab Mehmood.”