Man who ordered niece murder loses court bid

DEFAMATION CLAIM AGAINST ITV IS THROWN OUT BY TOP JUDGES

- CALLUM PARKE News Reporter

A CONVICTED murderer who ordered the killing of his niece has lost a High Court claim against ITV over two programmes about her death.

Ari Mahmod was found guilty in 2007 of the murder of 20-year-old Banaz Mahmod, who was found buried in a suitcase in the back garden of a house in Birmingham in April 2006.

Prosecutors claimed at trial that Ari Mahmod ordered the murder to be carried out by three others, who were also convicted.

He sued ITV in October 2023 for £400,000 in damages over a documentary broadcast in 2012, and a two-part drama which aired in 2020, which covered Banaz Mahmod’s life and murder and alleged that she was raped by the three men who killed her.

Appearing via a video link from HMP Whitemoor in Cambridgeshire, Ari Mahmod told the High Court that the programmes had defamed him as they implied he was involved in the rape, which he denied.

Representing himself at a hearing in May, he further claimed there was no evidence that Banaz Mahmod had been raped.