PTI lawyers embroiled in spat

ISLAMABAD: In a detailed social media post, Advocate Sher Afzal Khan Marwat from the PTI’s legal team has levelled serious allegations against Imran Khan’s lawyer Shoaib Shaheen, calling him the "sole traitor" within the PTI’s legal team. Talking to The News, Shoaib Shaheen has called the claims Marwat’s "personal stance" and not the party’s position.

Taking to X (formerly Twitter), Marwat on Wednesday had claimed that “the only traitor in PTI’s legal team is Shoaib Shaheen Advocate. He mysteriously emerged in the last week of April 2023 and I was surprised to see him at the legal committee meeting in Bani Gala. He had never been part of the ILF or PTI before and his access to Bani Gala reflected that he had the support of some in our ranks.”

This post on social media follows a tweet/ post last month by Marwat in which he had said that there were people within the PTI’s legal team who were “leaking sensitive party information to adversaries” and such “traitors” in the legal team and the party’s core committee had put his “life in danger”. Marwat had deleted his August tweet/post apparently on “advice from seniors of the core committee”.

Titled: ‘Shoaib Shaheen Advocate: the only traitor in PTI’s legal team’, Sher Afzal Marwat’s Wednesday social media post said that “Shoaib Shaheen deals with service tribunal cases and does not know the ABC of criminal law” and went on to then claim that Shaheen “despite not being a lawyer in a single criminal case filed against Khan Sb [had] started posing as Khan Sb’s lawyer, which was a fraud.”

Marwat also accused “powerful secret forces” within the PTI of supporting Shaheen, questioning why when “the entire PTI leadership was blacklisted on electronic media, [Shaheen] was the only person who was neither stopped nor blacklisted”. Adding that, despite being irrelevant to Imran Khan’s legal team — being “an employment and services lawyer” — Shoaib Shaeen managed to somehow make it to every meeting of the party’s legal team, Marwat also insinuated that Shaheen had the support of “two individuals” in the party.

Marwat has accused Shoaib Shaheen of leaking the PTI strategy to the “agriculture department”, saying that the PTI strategy was also already known to state attorneys.

In his post, Marwat said that Shoaib Shaheen had essentially damaged the PTI’s legal battle, and that he [Marwat] could challenge [anyone] that Shaheen had not represented Imran Khan in a single criminal case and yet continues to claim to be his lawyer. Not just that, Marwat has also claimed in his post that “before the year 2023, [Shoaib Shaheen] would boast about his connections within ‘agencies’ -- and this was also common knowledge in the Islamabad Bar”.

Responding to these allegations, Shoaib Shaheen told this reporter that “a person who creates divisions within the party cannot be from the PTI”. Shaheen also said that he had answered questions about Sher Afzal Marwat in the Supreme Court, adding that the PTI had nominated five spokespersons one of whom included Shaheen. Asserting that his “position aligns with the PTI’s stance”, Shoaib Shaheen said that Marwat’s allegations were his personal opinion and not the party’s stance.

At the end of his post, Advocate Marwat had also said that Shoaib Shaheen had been plotting against him and that his social post would encourage Shaheen’s “facilitators and associates to undermine my position in the PTI and [they] may target me through their secret friends, but I consider it a sacred duty that all PTI workers know the reality....I will meet Khan Sahib tomorrow and inform him about my tweet."

Meanwhile, the PTI’s official X/Twitter account responded on Wednesday night to Marwat’s allegations, saying that: “The recent statement of Sher Afzal Marwat Advocate is totally based on his personal opinion” and has nothing to do with the PTI. The post added that Shoaib Shaheen “is a key member of the approved legal team of PTI Chairman Imran Khan, part of the [party’s] core committee, and is authorized to represent the PTI’s position on legal and political issues. The PTI appreciates the services of all the members of the legal team, including Shoaib Shaheen....”.