Malicious story defamed me, says surgeon Munjed Al Muderis
A celebrated orthopaedic surgeon has told a court he was maliciously misrepresented by a Nine journalist in a story about a Kurdish amputee he ignored.
A celebrated orthopaedic surgeon says he was maliciously misrepresented by a Nine journalist in a story about a Kurdish amputee he ignored, as lawyers for the paper attempt to discredit his recollection of events.
The second day of Munjed Al Muderis’s evidence in his defamation proceedings against Nine newspapers and 60 Minutes in the Federal Court centred on the story of Lisa Calan, an activist and filmmaker who lost both her legs in a suicide bombing in Turkey.
She raised money to fly to Sydney and have osseo-integration surgery, a specialised procedure to place a prosthetic implant into the bone of an amputee, by Dr Al Muderis.
Ms Calan told The Age in an article published on December 30, 2022, months after the first story, that her pleas for help following October 2017 surgery went unanswered as she was “sent … back to Turkey with open wounds and raging infection”.
The court was told about videos of Ms Calan from December 2017 to mid-2022 where she was dancing with friends, travelling the world and being generally active. Dr Al Muderis rejected her version of events and said the surgery succeeded since she was able to walk again.
He said he was “very disappointed and disgusted to see” the article in The Age, given all those social media posts were publicly accessible to journalist Charlotte Grieve.
“It was very clear to the public that Ms Calan is doing well … she doesn’t hide it … I’m speechless about it because it’s very disappointing to see that it was a very malicious act by Ms Grieve to misrepresent this story about Ms Calan completely.”
In cross-examination, Nine’s lawyer, Matt Collins KC, showed pages of WhatsApp messages between Ms Calan and Dr Al Muderis from about October 2018 to September 2019 in which Ms Calan and her friend Amy go back and forth with the surgeon asking him for help.
He replies sparingly but rejected claims he had ignored his patient.
In his claim, Dr Al Muderis says the stories defamed him when they painted him as a negligent surgeon who used high-pressure sales tactics to the detriment of his clients.
Nine is relying on defences including truth and public interest.
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