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

The second publication

The Defendant’s pleaded case does not give rise to any points concerning the second publication in addition to those already made above.

The DWS refers to an article concerning Asif Ali Zardari in the Telegraph of 3 August 2010 entitled “Asif Ali Zardari: life and style of Pakistan’s Mr 10 Per Cent” which begins “As an investment minister in his wife’s administration in the 1990s, Mr Zardari was accused by political rivals of taking personal commissions on government contracts”. However, this again, in my judgment, is far removed from providing reasonable grounds to believe that it was in the public interest to publish in June 2022 the statement that the Claimant had had several meetings with Mr Zardari concerning election manipulation.