Staff Reporter
The Rawalpindi Civil Court has issued arrest warrants for Hanif Abbasi in a defamation case filed by the Shaukat Khanum Memorial Trust.
Some years ago, Hanif Abbasi levelled false and baseless allegations against members of the board of governors of the SKMT, in a television interview.
He alleged, amongst other things, that they were paid millions of rupees in salaries from donation and Zakat funds.
To counter these inaccurate and unfounded charges against their board members, all of whom have always served in a purely honorary capacity.
SKMT management filed a defamation suit against Abbasi in the Rawalpindi Civil Court in 2012 and won the case.
The court ordered that Hanif Abbasi pay a sum of Rs. 5,000,000 in damages to the SKMT.
However, Hanif Abbasi neither appeared in person in the court nor paid the fine within the stipulated time.
As a result, the court issued arrest warrants for the arrest of Hanif Abbasi on April 17, 2021.
It is important to mention here that the SKMT runs the country’s only tertiary care cancer hospitals in Lahore and Peshawar, and relies on donations and Zakat to treat thousands of needy cancer patients each year, entirely free of charge.