QB-2022-002648 - [2025] EWHC 2565 (KB)

General Durrani

At [6] and [7] of his interlocutory witness statement dated 20 June 2023, the Defendant states respectively: “The Claimant uses his official role for implementing the illegal and extrajudicial agenda of the military junta” and “This is confirmed by a tweet by the ex-head of the ISI, General Asad Durrani. I exhibit this tweet …”. However, this tweet does not, in fact, refer to the Claimant at all, let alone to him [mis]using his role for those purposes.

When cross-examined about this discrepancy, the Defendant said that he was addressing “the large picture”. Mr Lemer submitted that this is a fair reflection of what the Defendant has done in relation to each of the publications complained of in this claim – i.e. to treat information having a general tenor as providing a basis for specific allegations concerning the Claimant although the source material contains no such allegations. On the basis of this example, and the Defendant’s approach to the FFT Report concerning Arshad Sharif and what Amnesty International published (see below), I consider that this is probably correct.

This tweet fell to be considered in conjunction with an article, in respect of which Mr Harding submitted (i) General Durrani was the former head of the ISI, (ii) this article reports that General Durrani has admitted that the ISI has a political cell and that it was involved in the 1990 elections, and (iii) this contrasts with the Claimant’s evidence in his trial witness statement that “The ISI does not involve itself in Pakistani politics or the elections”.

In my judgment, these submissions do not address the point made by Mr Lemer. In fact the article relied on contains an admission that the ISI carried out a “political assessment ahead of the 1990 elections”, which is not necessarily the same as being “involved” in those elections. Leaving that aside, however, the question is not whether the ISI was involved in the 1990 elections but whether the Claimant’s misuse of his official role (as it happens, in connection with by-elections in 2022) has been confirmed by General Durrani. It has not.