AUSTRALIAN REPORTER TO FACE US COURT OVER TRADE LIBEL

Australian Four Corners reporter Sally Neighbour, under mounting scrutiny after being duped by a Pakistani fraudster into supporting an orchestrated shakedown of the Urban Institute by pursuing a personal vendetta against Kevin Curnow, seems set to either be named as a witness or added as a defendant in a US trade libel case in the US District Court.

 

Media reports have the Washington, D.C.-based non-profit the Urban Institute ‘firing back at a company which has accused it of copyright infringement in Pakistan, filing a trade libel suit against it in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia’ seeking unspecified damages.

(http://legaltimes.typepad.com/blt/2009/04/dc-nonprofit-accuses-pakistani-company-of-trade-libel.html)

 

The Urban Institute, an economic and social policy researcher, alleges that Fincon Services, lead by Shahid Yusuf, the fraudster who duped Sally Neighbour into supporting the shakedown, has falsely accused it in the Pakistani media and courts of pirating software the non-profit created for the U.S. Agency for International Development.

 

Yusuf’s actions, supported by Sally Neighbour as an unwitting dupe, are described in the US District Court as ‘a shakedown’. Neighbour looks to be cited as part of the orchestrated media campaign by the fraudster Yusuf to tar the reputation of the Urban Institute. Neighbour fell foul of an age old scam by Yusuf to use her known personal vendetta against the Urban Institute employee Kevin Curnow to further the shakedown.

 

Neighbour’s vendetta against Kevin Curnow relates to a 2001 beat up she ran on the Australian Four Corners current affairs program that was exposed by police when they could find no substance to any of her allegations against Kevin Curnow. Yusuf used her known vendetta and orchestrated her to run further material in the Australia media which Yusuf used in the Pakistani courts to try and shakedown the Urban Institute.

 

Yusuf’s shakedown seeks $5 million from the Urban Institute. Surprisingly, Sally Neighbour alleges that the reason that Kevin Curnow was never charged following her allegations against him is that Australian police do not investigate cases of less than $5 million. The constant repetition of this figure has lead to speculation of a deeper relationship between Sally Neighbour and the fraudster Shahid Yusuf that needs investigation by the US District Court.

(‘U.S. Think Tank Attacked by Pakistan Corruption’ http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1723156/us_think_tank_attacked_by_pakistan)

 

The date for hearing is not set in the US District Court, but pundits are certain that Neighbour will at least be subpoenaed to explain her actions, if not be added as a defendant. ‘The Australian’, the newspaper that carried Sally Neighbour’s report that supported the shakedown, may well also be implicated.