LONDON (Kashmir English): The High Court of Justice in London has ruled in favor of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Azad Kashmir President Chaudhry Yasin and his son Aamir Yasin in a defamation case against YouTuber and journalist Abrar Qureshi.
The High Court King’s Bench, presided over by Justice Heather Williams, declared that the defendant’s allegations were false, misleading, and equivalent to character assassination.
The case was heard from July 7 to July 9, 2025, where claimants’ counsel Russell Wilcox and Abrar Qureshi’s counsel David Kelly appeared.
The court’s verdict stated that “the defendant’s publications in early November 2021 on his YouTube channel and Facebook page contained defamatory statements, which caused serious harm to the Claimants’ reputations.”
The royal court has ordered Abrar Qureshi to pay £130,000 in damages to each of the claimants, Chaudhry Yasin and Aamir Yasin, totaling £260,000, by August 8, 2025. Qureshi will also pay interest on the damages, amounting to £21,829 for each claimant, the court judgment reads.
The judgment also ordered “the journalist to pay the claimants £65,000 by way of interim payment on account of the claimants’ costs of the claim.”
The court has also ordered Qureshi to apologize for his defamatory statements and “publish a summary of the judgment on his social media channels, ensuring that the same audience who viewed the original defamatory material would be informed of the court’s finding.”
Additionally, the court directed the journalist to be careful from publish defamatory statements or similar content in the future.
According to the court’s verdict, the defendant published an interview in early 2021, featuring Chaudhry Yasin’s former employee Chaudhry Muhammed Sabeel, who leveled serious accusations against the PPP leader, including blackmail, sexual abuse, and corruption.
The judgment added that such allegations “struck at the heart of their personal and professional identities” as prominent public figures within Pakistan and the Kashmiri community in the United Kingdom.
Talking to the media, Chaudhry Yasin called the court’s verdict a victory for truth and justice, while Aamir Yasin said that he approached the court to save his family’s reputation.
