Sawt Falasteen - Harry due to testify to UK court next week in last tabloid case

Harry and six others including pop icon Elton John and husband David Furnish are suing Associated Newspapers Ltd (ANL), the publisher of the Daily Mail and The Mail on Sunday tabloids, over alleged privacy breaches.

A nine-week trial in the long-running case is due to begin Monday at the High Court in London, when Harry may attend for three days of opening statements.

The 41-year-old is then due to take the stand for a full day of testimony on Thursday, the draft trial schedule shared with reporters by lawyers showed.

Actress Elizabeth Hurley is set to give evidence the following week, followed by John and Furnish in early February.

It will be a rare trip back to Britain for the prince, also known as the Duke of Sussex, who stepped back from royal duties in 2020 and relocated eventually to California with wife Meghan, where they live with their two children.

During his last UK visit in September, Harry met with his father King Charles III seeking to start to repair a bitter rift with his immediate family.

But UK media have said there are no plans for Harry to see his father during next week's visit.

The prince has waged several legal battles with UK tabloids over privacy invasion accusations, including phone hacking.

In 2023, he made history by becoming the first senior British royal to give evidence in court for more than a century, when he testified as part of a claim against Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN).

The High Court ruled later that year that Harry was a victim of phone hacking by journalists working for those papers, and awarded him £140,600 ($188,000) in damages.

- Phone tapping -

Harry last year settled a long-running lawsuit against Rupert Murdoch's UK tabloid publisher, which agreed to pay him "substantial damages" after admitting intruding into his private life, including by hacking his phone.

In the remaining ANL case, Harry and the others accuse its papers of various alleged wrongdoing, including tapping phone calls and impersonating individuals to obtain medical information for articles. The accusations are firmly denied.

Lawyers for the claimants said the alleged unlawful acts were carried out from 1993 to 2011, but some took place as late as 2018.

A pre-trial hearing on Thursday at the High Court saw lawyers for both sides wrangling over various unresolved matters, including a challenge by the claimants' lawyers over the planned opening statement by ANL's legal team.

Judge Matthew Nicklin ruled that a small portion of the opening statement should be amended, but refused to order larger changes.

O.Salim--SF-PST