Sayed Zulfikar Abbas Bukhari v Syed Tauqeer Bukhari
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Mr Justice Murray |
| Judgment Date | 01 February 2022 |
| Neutral Citation | [2022] EWHC 173 (QB) |
| Docket Number | Case No: QB-2020-001139 |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division |
[2022] EWHC 173 (QB)
THE HONOURABLE Mr Justice Murray
Case No: QB-2020-001139
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
MEDIA AND COMMUNICATIONS LIST
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
Mr Jacob Dean (instructed by Stone White Solicitors) for the Claimant
The Defendant appeared in person.
Hearing date: 14 June 2021
Approved Judgment
I direct that copies of this version as handed down may be treated as authentic.
This is a trial of preliminary issues in respect of the claim brought by the claimant, Mr Sayed Zulfikar Abbas Bukhari, against the defendant, Mr Syed Tauqeer Bukhari, for libel and harassment in respect of words and images contained in various Tweets and videos embedded in Tweets posted by the defendant to his Twitter account @TauqeerBukahri1 from around mid-2019 to March 2020, when he filed his claim. The claimant says that the defendant has continued his campaign of harassment against the claimant since the filing of his claim and continues to post defamatory Tweets and videos.
The preliminary issues to be tried, in relation to each of the statements complained of, are:
i) the natural and ordinary meaning of the statement;
ii) whether that meaning is defamatory at common law; and
iii) whether the statement is a statement of fact or opinion.
This trial takes place further to, and in accordance with the directions given in, the order of Julian Knowles J made on 21 December 2020 (“the Knowles J Order”), although the hearing eventually took place on 14 June 2021, outside the trial window specified in the Knowles J Order. The judgement of Julian Knowles J setting out his reasons for making the Knowles J Order was handed down on 21 December 2021 (neutral citation: [2020] EWHC 3469 (QB)).
Factual background
In his judgment, Julian Knowles J succinctly summarised the factual background to this matter as follows:
“3. The Claimant is commonly known as Zulfi Bukhari. He is a dual British and Pakistani national. Paragraph 1 of his Particulars of Claim avers that he is a very well-known and successful businessman in the UK and is involved in various charitable and humanitarian projects in the UK. He is currently based in Pakistan, having been appointed as an adviser to Prime Minister Imran Khan in September 2018. He visits England regularly, where many members of his family live, including his young children.
4. The Claimant and the Defendant are cousins.
5. Since about September 2019 the Defendant has published many hundreds of Tweets concerning the Claimant, often several times a day. The Claimant's case is that the Tweets contain a number of common themes, namely that the Claimant is corrupt, that his family wealth is derived from serious crime, and that the Defendant and his father are the victims of criminal conduct by the Claimant and the Claimant's father. Many of the Tweets contain embedded videos of the Defendant speaking to camera in Urdu, making allegations concerning the Claimant and his father. The Defendant's tweeting has continued on a regular basis throughout the progress of these proceedings.
6. The Claimant alleges that the Defendant deliberately publishes his Tweets in such a way so as to ensure that they come to the attention of the Claimant, and of a large number of other Twitter users. For example, [9.1.3] of the Particulars of Claim avers:
‘On several occasions the Defendant's aim of using his Twitter account to bring his allegations to the attention of an audience much larger than his own followers has been very successful. By way of example, a Tweet dated 18 November 2019 (Tweet 163), in which the Defendant accused the Claimant of corruption and of being behind an attack on the Defendant at his home, was Retweeted by the well-known Pakistani journalist Reham Khan, who has over 2.4million Twitter followers. This led to the video embedded in that Tweet (Video 11) being viewed over 10,000 times. The inference will be invited that a very substantial proportion of those views were made by Urdu speakers within this jurisdiction.’
7. The Defendant's Tweets during the relevant period of which the Claimant is aware are set out in a Table of Tweets in Appendix One to the Particulars of Claim. This Table gives each Tweet a number, sets out the content of the Tweet, states whether there was a video embedded within it (by reference to the number given to the video as described below) and states the number of any Retweets or ‘likes’ which the Tweet attracted.
8. The content of the embedded videos is given in the Table of Videos in Appendix Two to the Particulars of Claim. That Table gives each video a number and sets out the original Urdu language of the video along with a true English translation.
9. The defamatory meanings relied upon by the Claimant number some 20 in total and are listed in [14] of the Particulars of Claim, and further detailed in Appendix 3 to that document. They include that the Claimant dishonestly pretends to have made his money as a businessman when in fact his wealth is derived from family money obtained from illegal activity; that he is a perjurer and a criminal; that he is corrupt and a thief; and that he has committed a fraud against, and stolen land and valuables from, the Defendant's father. These are plainly very serious allegations. Paragraphs 16 and 17 of the Particulars of Claim aver:
‘Each of the meanings set out above under paragraph 14 are defamatory of the Claimant at common law and are seriously so. Given the extent of publication of the Tweets in question, and the nature and identity of the publishees, the Claimant will invite the inference that serious harm has been caused to his reputation by the publication of each such Tweet.
Damage
17. In addition to serious harm to his reputation the Claimant has been caused very severe distress and embarrassment by reason of the publication of the defamatory Tweets complained of and has been caused serious alarm, anxiety and distress by reason of the harassing course of conduct complained of.’”
Appendix 1 to the Particulars of Claim sets out in tabular form the texts of 249 sequentially numbered Tweets posted by the defendant to his Twitter account, all but four of which are in English. Four of the texts are in Urdu, accompanied by an English translation. In the hearing bundle for this trial, the entry for each numbered Tweet in Appendix 1 is hyperlinked to a screen shot of the relevant Tweet as it appeared on Twitter.
A number of the Tweets have embedded videos, featuring the defendant speaking to camera in Urdu. Five of the Tweets have only an embedded video and no additional text.
Appendix 2 to the Particulars of Claim sets out in tabular form the transcripts of 21 sequentially numbered videos embedded in Tweets posted by the defendant to his Twitter account. Each entry in Appendix 2 includes a transcript in Urdu with an English translation and words in bold indicating who the speaker is or providing other identifying information. With a few exceptions, the speaker is the defendant. In two instances, the speaker is the defendant's father. Two videos feature an unidentified speaker. In the hearing bundle for this trial, the entry for each numbered video is hyperlinked to a Dropbox location containing a copy of the relevant video.
There appears to be no dispute as to the accuracy of the English translations of the Tweets in Urdu or of the Urdu transcripts of the videos embedded in Tweets posted by the defendant.
Only a portion of the Tweets and videos embedded in Tweets posted by the defendant are relied upon for the libel claim. The full set of Tweets and videos is relied upon to show the defendant's course of conduct for purposes of the harassment element of the claim.
At the time of the hearing before Julian Knowles J, the claimant was relying on 58 Tweets posted by the defendant and on 13 videos embedded in Tweets posted by the defendant in respect of his libel claim.
As discussed in more detail in the judgment of Julian Knowles J, it appears that initially the defendant agreed that, in relation to the libel claim, there should be a trial of preliminary issues as to meaning, fact/opinion, and defamatory nature in relation to all of the Tweets and videos complained of by the claimant. At some point, the defendant resiled from that position and took the view that, in the interests of proportionality, the claimant should select the “best” ten examples from the statements complained of, in respect of which the preliminary issues would then be determined. Julian Knowles J concluded, however, at [51] of his judgment that it was not overly burdensome for the defendant to set out his case on the restricted number of statements in the libel claim, namely, 58 Tweets and 13 videos.
Accordingly, in the Knowles J Order, Julian Knowles J ordered that there be a trial of preliminary issues in relation to the statements complained of in the libel claim, namely, the preliminary issues set out at [2] above. Julian Knowles J also gave directions to trial, including a direction in paragraph 3 of the Knowles J Order that the defendant should inform the claimant's solicitors by 4:00pm on 18 January 2021 of his position in respect of each of the preliminary issues in relation to each statement complained of in the libel claim. Julian Knowles J also ordered that the defendant pay the claimant's costs of the hearing before him, summarily assessed in the sum of £6,820. In his view, the defendant had advanced no good reason for resiling from his position in May...
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Sayed Zulfikar Abbas Bukhari v Syed Tauqeer Bukhari
...of this claim. 6 The trial of those preliminary issues was heard by Murray J on 14 June 2021. He gave judgment on 1 February 2022: [2022] EWHC 173 (QB). In the circumstances described by Murray J at [16], “ in the interests of proportionality”, the claimant reduced the number of tweets and......