Mohamed Amersi's defamation trial against BBC opens in London
Mohamed Amersi is suing the BBC for defamation, a legal claim that published material damaged his reputation, and a seven-week trial in the High Court opened on 28 October 2026.
The case centres on a 2021 Panorama programme titled Pandora Papers: Political Donors Exposed, and a related BBC article. Amersi's barrister, Oliver Powell, told the court that the programme and the article caused very serious harm to Amersi, according to The Guardian.
The BBC's reporting focused on Amersi's work as an adviser to Telia, the Swedish telecoms company then known as TeliaSonera, in Uzbekistan. It also examined a $220m payment made in January 2010 to Takilant, a company registered in Gibraltar, a British overseas territory. The BBC said there were strong grounds to suspect that Amersi was involved in deals he knew or should have known were corrupt. The broadcaster's case is that the real beneficial owner of Takilant, meaning the person who ultimately controlled it, was Gulnara Karimova, the eldest daughter of Uzbekistan's president.
The BBC is defending the claim on the grounds of truth and public interest. Its position is that the reporting was accurate and that its publication served the public interest.
Amersi has said the BBC scandal cost him a knighthood and a peerage. He has also said that the Swiss bank Union Bancaire Privée debanked him after the publicity, meaning the bank ended its relationship with him, the reporter said in coverage of the trial.
Amersi's political giving has also drawn attention in coverage of the case. He donated £25,000 to Reform UK last year, after previously donating hundreds of thousands of pounds to the Conservative Party.
On the financial side of the dispute, court documents published by the judiciary show that Amersi seeks damages of up to £100,000, along with an injunction, which is a court order requiring a party to stop or refrain from certain conduct. In July 2026, the BBC asked a London judge to order Amersi to pay up to £1.58 million ($2.11 million) as security for costs, a sum held as a guarantee towards the other side's legal costs, according to Law360.
