ISLAMABAD   -   PTI activists Shayan Ali and Adil Ra­ja’s lawyer Mahtab Anwar Aziz has re­vealed to the UK’s High Court that PTI UK leading activist Shayan Ali suffers from serious mental health issues - as their joint effort to malign the Pakistan Army and the Inter Services Agency (ISI) failed badly at the English court.

Mahtab Anwar Aziz who represents both Shayan Ali and Adil Farooq Raja told the UK High Court in the retired Pakistani Brigadier’s defamation case against Adil Raja, that Shayan Ali was vulnerable and suffering from mental health issues. 

Mahtab Anwar Aziz tried to argue that the defamation cases brought by the retired officer against Adil Raja and a case by Mariam Aurangzeb against Shayan Ali lacked merit and were Stra­tegic Lawsuits against Public Partici­pation (SLAPP) and should not be al­lowed to continue or be halted for a few months. 

To achieve this purpose and with ap­proval from Shayan Ali and Adil Raja, Mahtab Anwar Aziz made completely false and ludicrous allegations of ter­rorism, corruption, murder, kidnap­pings, torture, rigging, repression and censorship against Pakistan’s military before the English Court but failed to back up his claims with evidence.

Mahtab Anwar Aziz told the court that the solicitors, at the law firm that represents the retired officer, were pro­longing the case with Shayan Ali as it “should have settled at an early stage to avoid undue stress and financial loss to Ali” who he said was “a vulnerable young teenager, who has suffered men­tal health issues due to the strategically prolonged litigation designed to finan­cially drain Ali’s family who are sup­porting him as he is a full-time student.”

Adil Raja told the court that his life and his lawyer’s life was in danger but Mahtab Anwar Aziz, who calls himself a celebrity lawyer, was happy to take on the Pakistani state institutions as he “is an expert martial artist having trained in martial arts for over 40 years”. It is not clear how this would help Adil Raja in his case or if he is threatening the Pa­kistani state actors with violence from Mahtab Anwar Aziz. 

Mahtab Anwar Aziz has been so des­perate to try and stop the cases going ahead that he made several false alle­gations against the Pakistani security institutions, hoping the English Judge will be swayed by the allegations that we often read in the Indian media but he failed badly. 

Mahtab Anwar Aziz told the court it is not in the interest of, nor professional­ly advisable for any solicitor of England and Wales to be taking up a case on be­half of the Pakistani security institu­tions. He said it was “unconscionable” for any solicitor to act for the retired Brigadier and Ms Mariam Aurang­zeb or any other officer. He showed no proof to back up his false claims.

Adil Raja and Shayan Ali’s lawyer al­leged before the court that the Election Commission of Pakistan stopped the 8 February rigged election results and “this was blatant and shameless elec­tion rigging of a grand scale never seen in Pakistan.” The court rejected these allegations against state institutions for lack of evidence.

Lawyer of Shayan Ali and Adil Raja told the court the Pakistan government was behind these cases and the trial should be stayed but the court rejected these arguments as they lacked merit and credibility. 

Mahtab Anwar Aziz told the court that Shayan Ali, who regularly pro­tests in London against PML-N, was ex­ercising his freedom of speech “in re­lation to economic crime in which Ms Aurangzeb was implicated and he then became the subject of a defamation claim” and that’s why the case should be stopped but the judge did not agree and went ahead with his rulings. 

Shayan Ali and Adil Raja’s lawyer produced before the court a newspa­per article in a pro-Indian publication published in February 2024 in which false and baseless accusation were lev­elled against Pakistan Army but the court rejected these arguments. 

Shayan Ali and Adil Raja’s lawyer tried to link Arshad Sharif’s murder with the Pakistani authorities but the court didn’t entertain his arguments and rejected false claims made by Shayan Ali, Mahtab Aziz and Adil Raja due to absolute lack of proofs. 

Mahtab Anwar Aziz made these frivo­lous claims in support of Adil Raja’s 12 pages diatribe against Pakistan armed forces but the court didn’t entertain his false allegations. 

Regardless of what Mahtab Anwar Aziz and Adil Raja said to the Judge, Adil Raja was dealt a crushing blow as he lost in hearing, lost his application for a stay, lost his application for secu­rity of costs, got a very short period for anonymity for his witnesses. His appli­cation to throw out the retired Briga­dier’s case was also stayed by the Judge.

The joint effort by Shayan Ali, Adil Raja and Mahtab Aziz failed to con­vince the Judge who stated that he had no such evidence before him and he was not convinced by the wild claims made as a last-ditch effort to stop go­ing ahead. 

On top of all that the Judge ordered that Adil Raja to pay £10,000 to the re­tired Brigadier.

Both Adil Raja and Shayan Ali are jointly represented by Central Law Chambers (where Mahtab Anwar Aziz works as a solicitor) which is owned by Ahmad Jawad, who is from Mandi Bahauddin’s Gondal family. It is worth noting that lawyer of youtuber did not respond to the questions sent by various journalists to seek his point of view with regard to jaw breaking le­gal defeat.