Bukhari serves £100m defamation notice on Bilawal

Former special assistant to the prime minister on overseas Pakistanis Zulfi Bukhari on Thursday served a £100 million defamation notice on PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari for the latter’s recent remarks related to an alleged Israel trip.

Bukhari served the notice after the PPP chairman raised objections over reports of the former SAPM’s alleged visit to Israel, a charge rejected by the former, calling it “baseless”.

In a presser on June 28, the PPP chairman said the government must reveal the details of Zulfi Bukhari’s alleged visit to Israel. “There are reports that an airplane flew to Israel from Pakistan, so the government must clarify the details of the route before the nation,” he had said.

Bilawal was of the view that since the Israeli newspaper published the report after approval from the country’s defence ministry there was “something suspicious” about the entire story.

Following the development, Bukhari decided to move ahead with defamation proceedings against Bilawal and serve him a defamation notice.

Read Bilawal, Qureshi engage in verbal spat in National Assembly

“After consulting with my legal team, I’ve decided to move ahead with defamation proceedings against Bilawal Bhutto Zardari for his recent irresponsible remarks,” the former PM’s aide said in a tweet.

“His poor understanding about most things again made him blurt out things fed to him, provoking issues he knows nothing about,” he added.

According to the notice shared on Twitter, Bukhari has asked Bilawal to publicly apologise over national media, take an oath to not utter such defamatory remarks against him again and propose payment for damages caused.

“In case you fail to comply with the foregoing within a period of fourteen (14) days, we have standing instructions from our client to institute legal proceedings against you [Bilawal] in the court of law seeking full enforcement of all our client’s rights that reside against you and otherwise applicable under the law, at your sole risk, cost and peril. This may also include a claim for special damages amounting to a minimum of GBP.100 million/-,” it read.

The notice further read that the former aide to the PM reserves his right to take legal action against the PPP chairman on grounds other than defamation.