UK High Court orders Adil Raja to publicly apologise to Brig (retd) Rashid Naseer

LONDON: The UK High Court has ordered YouTuber Major (retired) Adil Raja to make a public apology and pay around £310,000 in damages and legal costs to Brigadier (retd) Rashid Naseer in relation to the defamation case that Adil Raja lost in October this year.

Judge Richard Spearman KC made the order after a hearing in the London High Court, where Raja had sought to make an appeal against the original judgment.

Naseer asked the court to proceed with making the order following the judgment he obtained in his favour in October this year.

After hearing the arguments of Raja’s lawyer Simon Harding, Judge Richard Spearman KC refused to entertain Raja’s application for permission to appeal before him. The Judge was critical of Raja’s lawyers, who did not engage with Naseer’s lawyers in dealing with consequential matters.

The Judge has made the following orders to Raja: he must make a public apology for his defamatory statements towards Brig (retired) Naseer; this apology is to be posted for 28 days on Raja’s Twitter, Facebook, YouTube accounts and the main page of his website; Raja has been ordered to pay £50,000 in damages and £260,000 costs upfront (and the rest to be assessed later) all to be paid by 22 December 2025; Raja has been issued an Injunction order not to repeat the defamatory statements; and permission to Appeal was not granted by the Judge.

In October this year, the UK High Court Judge ruled against Major (retd) Raja in the defamation case filed by Brigadier (retd) Naseer at the London High Court that Raja defamed Naseer, without any factual basis and evidence, made false allegations and therefore the court awarded £50,000 in damages to Naseer, an injunction restraining Raja from repeating his baseless and false allegations ever again and ordered Raja to publish a summary of the judgement confirming that Naseer had won the case and that the allegations were defamatory.

Brig (retd) Naseer attended the trial in July this year, he also attended the court when the judgment was delivered and he was also present in the court on Monday when the final orders were made. Raja attended the court remotely, and his lawyers attended the court during the trial. Raja was not present during the hearing on Monday.

Raja told Geo News in a statement: “We are appealing the judgement at the Court of Appeal.”

Naseer had started his defamation claim against Raja in August 2022 over ten publications — published between June 14 and 29, 2022, on Raja’s Twitter, YouTube and Facebook.

The court found that nine of these publications were seriously defamatory to Naseer and caused him serious harm.

The judge stated that he was not persuaded that the allegations that Raja published came from his “sources” because (i) when observing Raja give oral evidence, he was unable to determine whether Raja’s evidence was reliable or a case of mistaken recollection or exaggeration; and (ii) Raja produced no contemporary record of any kind which supported his evidence.

Raja was unable to satisfy the judge that his source(s) provided him with information to support the allegations that he made against Naseer; therefore, his public interest defence failed.

Naseer was represented by Barrister David Lemer of Doughty Street Chambers and Ushrat Sultana and Sadia Qureshi of Stone White Solicitors. Raja was represented by Barrister Simon Harding.