Federal Information and Broadcasting Minister Marryium Aurangzeb has said the Daily Mail delayed the case for 18 months on one pretext or another.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has already submitted a brief reply to a UK court, she said.

The detailed response is to be submitted by December 13 – the next hearing date fixed by the UK court.

The Daily Mail has yet to prove its allegations in court and now it will face the law, she said adding that the defamation case will come to trial in December 2023.

The UK paper alleged in a 2019 story that Shehbaz Sharif misappropriated taxpayers’ money, in particular government aid intended for the victims of the 2005 earthquake in Pakistan.

Shehbaz Sharif filed the suit, claiming damages as well as an injunction restraining the newspaper from publishing the ‘defamatory words’.