More than 30 patients and their family members gave evidence in the mammoth defamation trial brought by Dr Munjed Al Muderis against Nine and this masthead.
This was a man at war with his patients, the people he had a duty to protect. The celebrity surgeon accused patients, from all over the world – Cambodia, Turkey, America and different corners of Australia – of lying about what he did to them. Many of these patients had complained to him in writing for years before this masthead’s investigation ever began. Still, he maintained he could do no wrong.
The Federal Court found otherwise. Justice Wendy Abraham found the patients who testified in the public interest had no reason to lie. She found, overall, these people were honest, credible, impressive and reliable, and she also ruled these were not isolated cases. Abraham found Al Muderis failed a significant cohort of his patients, in a variety of damning ways.
As for Al Muderis, she ruled that he was the one telling the lies, and he had been cruel, callous, evasive and argumentative and showed a “preparedness to lie”.
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