DM Monitoring
LONDON: British tabloid on Thursday tendered an apology to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif while withdrawing each and every allegation of corruption against him and his son-in-law Imran Ali Yousaf. The British publication also removed the article written by David Rose from all platforms of Mail publishers.
The United Kingdom-based publication has failed to prove the allegations levelled by its journalist David Rose in an article against Premier Shehbaz about the alleged misappropriation of public funds.
Since the publication of the report, the prime minister has maintained that he was not involved in any wrongdoing and also approached a court in the UK challenging the allegation — resulting in an apology from the UK’s publication.
The tabloid, in its clarification statement, mentioned that their article concerning PM Shehbaz titled “Did the family of Pakistani politician who has become the poster boy for British overseas aid STEAL funds meant for earthquake victims” was published on July 14, 2019.
The report was based on an investigation by National Accountability Bureau into PM Shehbaz and suggested that the money under “investigation included a not insubstantial sum of British public money that had been paid to the Punjab province in DFID grant aid”, the statement said.
“We accept Mr Sharif has never been accused by the National Accountability Bureau of any wrongdoing in relation to British public money or DFID grant aid. We are pleased to make this clear and apologise to Mr Sharif for this error,” the clarification read.
In July 2019, UK’s newspaper accused PM Shehbaz of “embezzling tens of millions of pounds of public money and laundering it in Britain’” The report, quoting Pakistani investigators, claimed that “some of the allegedly stolen money came from DFID-funded aid projects”.
The report — titled “Did the family of Pakistani politician who has become the poster boy for British overseas aid STEAL funds meant for earthquake victims, asks DAVID ROSE” — said the newspaper was given exclusive access to “some of the results of a high-level probe ordered by [then] prime minister Imran Khan”.
The paper also claimed to have interviewed “key witnesses held on remand in jail, including a UK citizen Aftab Mehmood”. “He claims he laundered millions on behalf of Shehbaz’s family from a nondescript office in Birmingham — without attracting suspicion from Britain’s financial regulators, who inspected his books regularly.”
