Retired Pak officer appears in UK court in libel case

LONDON: Retired senior Pakistan military officer Brigadier Rashid Naseer made a personal appearance at the UK High Court on Wednesday in his defamation case against the youtuber Major (retd) Adil Raja. The half day hearing was listed before Master Davison to determine three applications, ahead of the full trial that will take place in July this year.

The court ordered once again that Raja must payRashid Naseer’s legal costs. He was ordered to pay £6,100 in legal costs in addition to having already paid £23,000 to Rashid Naseer’s lawyers.

There were three applications the court was asked to deal with today.

The first application was an application by Adil Raja seeking a remote trial for himself and all his witnesses who are Shaheen Sehbai, Colonel (retired) Akbar Hussain and Mirza Shahzad Akbar. The judge refused to listen to the application and said that it should be dealt with by the trial judge at the pre-trial review hearing.

The second application was Adil Raja’s application for anonymity for an anonymous witness he alleged was in the army but who refused to be a witness for him. Adil Raja wanted the costs of this application to be paid by Rashid Naseer. The judge said he was going to leave costs to the end of the case.

The third application the judge dealt with was Rashid Naseer’s application for debarring order as Adil Raja had not paid previous costs ordered by the court (total £23,000 which Adil Raja paid within a few months of the application being made). The judge agreed with Rashid Naseer’s lawyers and ordered that Adil Raja must pay £6,100 to Rashid Naseer within 14 days.

Adil Raja said in a statement that he had won the main application in the hearing. He said: “I also won the anonymous witness withdrawal. I am pleased to announce that during today’s hearing at the Royal Court of Justice in London, the judge ruled in favour of my application for allowing my witnesses to attend the trial remotely in the case brought against me by the claimant.”