Zulfi Bukhari wins first hearing of defamation case against Reham Khan

Former Special Assistant for Overseas Pakistanis to Prime Minister Imran Khan, Zulfi Bukhari has won the first round of the defamation case against PM’s former wife Reham Khan, a media report said.

At a trial of preliminary issues before the London High Court, Justice Karen Steyn determined the meaning of the eight publications submitted by Zulfi Bukhari in his complaint, including a YouTube video on Roosevelt Hotel by Reham Khan carrying four allegations as well as four Tweets/Retweets.

Justice Steyn did not accept Reham Khan’s assessment of the publications’ meaning and accepted Zulfi Bukhari’s submission instead, Geo reported.

The defamation claim started over a YouTube broadcast made by Reham Khan on December 6, 2019, from the UK’s jurisdiction in which she alleged that Zulfi Bukhari had a personal interest in the sale of Manhattan’s Roosevelt Hotel, owned by Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) and that Pakistan’s national assets were being sold to help people like Zulfi Bukhari in an act of “robbery”.

In her deference, Reham Khan told the court that her December 6, 2019, vlog was an effort to raise an alert in the public interest about the government’s plans about the iconic Roosevelt Hotel in Manhattan. She said her broadcast was based on the information that the Aviation ministry had objected to the creation of a task force on Roosevelt.

Reham Khan said that she only wanted to save Roosevelt Hotel and had a right to raise questions about the “performance or buffoonery of the government”.

Further details will be disclosed in the next hearing.