Man who ordered niece's murder in Birmingham loses high court claim over documentaries
Ari Mahmod said the documentaries on the case damaged his reputation
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.
Lawyers for ITV asked a judge to rule in its favour before a trial, claiming that Ari Mahmod had not been defamed.
In a judgment on Friday, Mr Justice Murray ruled in ITV's favour, finding that the claim had "no basis" and "no realistic prospect of success".
He said: "The claimant appears to believe that he can use this defamation claim as a vehicle to challenge the allegation in the documentary and the drama that Banaz Mahmod was raped.
"That, of course, is wrong."
In a 15-page ruling, the judge said that Banaz Mahmod, an Iraqi Kurd, had gone missing three months before her body was discovered and was found to have been strangled with a shoelace.
Prosecutors claimed at trial that she had been killed because her family disapproved of her relationship with another man.
The ITV documentary, Banaz: An Honour Killing, was broadcast on October 31 2012, with a two-part drama, Honour, airing on September 28 and 29, 2020.
Mr Justice Murray said both programmes claimed that Banaz Mahmod was "brutally raped" by her killers, and Ari Mahmod claimed that the broadcasts implied that he "must either have also ordered her rape or must otherwise have been complicit in its occurrence".
The judge continued that Mahmod claimed that this had led to "negative consequences" for him, his family and his businesses, as "under Kurdish cultural norms, murder and rape are viewed differently".
In court documents, Mahmod described himself as a "very well-known businessman with (a) high reputation in (the) UK".
Mahmod continued that rape was "absolute taboo" among Kurdish people, but "by contrast, murder, though reprehensible and deplorable, is seen as comprehensible, because given the right chain of circumstance, anyone might commit such crime, one way or another".
He claimed £400,000 for damage to his reputation and "serious harm on his health, life, freedom, daily life, mental, moral future, progression and constant fear to his life and confidence".
Barristers for ITV claimed at the hearing in London that Mahmod had not been defamed, and that the claim was brought too late and was not "legally recognisable".
In his judgment, Mr Justice Murray said that neither the documentary nor the drama "conveys the meaning that the claimant knew about, was responsible for, or was involved in the alleged rape", and both made clear that Ari Mahmod's role was to "direct" his niece's murder.