Daily Mail tenders an apology to PM Shehbaz while withdrawing each & every allegation of corruption against him & his son-in-law Ali Imran
LONDON, Dec 08, (SABAH): British online newspaper Daily Mail on Thursday tendered an apology to Prime Minister Mian Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif while withdrawing each and every allegation of corruption against him and his son-in-law Ali Imran Yousaf.
The British publication also removed the article written by David Rose from all platforms of Mail publishers.
It should be noted that Daily Mail failed to prove the allegations leveled by its journalist David Rose in an article against Premier Shehbaz Shairf about the alleged misappropriation of public funds.
The Mail Online, in its clarification statement, mentioned that their article concerning PM Shehbaz entitled ‘Did the family of Pakistani politician who has become the poster boy for British overseas aid STEAL funds meant for earthquake victims’ published on July 14, 2019 was reported on an investigation by Pakistan’s National Accountability Bureau into Sharif and suggested that the money under “investigation included a not insubstantial sum of British public money that had been paid to the Punjab province in DFID grant aid”.
“We accept Mr Sharif has never been accused by the National Accountability Bureau of any wrongdoing in relation to British public money or DFID grant aid. We are pleased to make this clear and apologise to Mr Sharif for this error,” the clarification read.
It is worth mentioning here that in July 2019, UK’s Daily Mail newspaper accused Prime Minister Shehbaz of “embezzling tens of millions of pounds of public money and laundering it in Britain’”
The report, quoting Pakistani investigators, claimed that “some of the allegedly stolen money came from DFID-funded aid projects”.
The report — titled “Did the family of Pakistani politician who has become the poster boy for British overseas aid STEAL funds meant for earthquake victims, asks DAVID ROSE” — said the newspaper was given exclusive access to “some of the results of a high-level probe ordered by [then] prime minister Imran Khan”.
Daily Mail also claimed to have interviewed “key witnesses held on remand in jail, including a UK citizen Aftab Mehmood”.
“He claims he laundered millions on behalf of Shahbaz’s family from a nondescript office in Birmingham — without attracting suspicion from Britain’s financial regulators, who inspected his books regularly.”