Amersi Says BBC Coverage Blocked Titles as High Court Trial Opens

Mohamed Amersi, who has given to both the Conservative Party and Reform UK, opened a defamation case against the BBC at the High Court on 28 October, claiming that coverage of his work for Telia cost him a knighthood and a peerage. His barrister, Oliver Powell, told the court the material caused "very serious harm".

The case concerns a 2021 Panorama episode called Pandora Papers: Political Donors Exposed and a related BBC article that is still published. The reporting examined Amersi's work as an adviser to Telia, then TeliaSonera, in Uzbekistan, and a $220m payment made in January 2010 to a Gibraltar company named Takilant.

The programme and article stated there were strong grounds to suspect Amersi was involved in deals he knew or should have known were corrupt or involved corrupt payments. Powell said the claims struck at his client's reputation and integrity.

Amersi gave £25,000 to Reform UK last year and previously donated hundreds of thousands of pounds to the Conservatives. In a witness statement read to the court, he said the publicity forced him to step back from his educational philanthropy, that the "scandal cost me a knighthood and a peerage", and that Union Bancaire Privée of Switzerland closed his accounts.

The BBC is defending the material on truth and public-interest grounds. Its written defence argued there is no evidence Amersi suffered serious reputational harm from the programme or the article, said no corroborating documentary evidence supporting his assertions has been disclosed, and suggested his statement contains factual inaccuracies.

Powell told the court the BBC's case rests on admissions Telia made to the US Department of Justice in a 2017 deferred prosecution agreement, which he called untested "hearsay" deserving "little or no weight". He also cited a Telia-commissioned legal review that interviewed Amersi and was, in his words, "unable to determine with any certainty that there was any legal or financial connection between Takilant and Gulnara Karimova".

The BBC alleges Telia entered into a series of corrupt deals and payments for its businesses in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Nepal. Amersi says the broadcaster has produced no evidence of his knowledge of or involvement in corruption in those countries, and describes his Uzbekistan work as lasting fewer than six weeks in December 2009 and 2010.

Amersi seeks damages, including aggravated damages, and an injunction against further publication of the statements he calls defamatory. He is scheduled to give evidence for six days from 11 November, and the trial continues.