Zubair Ahmad KC is a leading silk, recognised as a “phenomenal advocate,” “a great tactician in extraordinarily difficult cases,” and possessing “unbelievable ability, immense knowledge, and sound judgment.” He has significant experience in both civil disputes and criminal matters involving corporate, professional and HNW clients.
Zubair is one of only a few silks appointed in both civil and criminal law. He regularly works on cases involving parallel civil and criminal proceedings or where the civil and criminal law intersect: he worked on both the private law civil claim in Belhaj (extraordinary rendition) and in the parallel judicial review brought by Belhaj of the CPS’s decision not to prosecute a public official for complicity in his rendition to Libya. He has acted in civil, criminal and immigration proceedings arising out of alleged breaches of the Syria sanctions.
He regularly advises corporate, professional, and HNW clients on reputational management, often preventing prosecution through strategic pre-charge representations. For example, he acted for a British director who was detained in Albania pending extradition to Bahrain for alleged fraud and secured the withdrawal of the extradition request and his immediate release. He recently acted for a HNW client who avoided prosecution for supporting a proscribed organisation contrary to the Terrorism Act 2000.
Zubair has a wealth of experience in immigration and nationality cases, particularly those involving British citizenship deprivation. He has consistently succeeded in judicial review cases, securing relocations for foreign clients. His expertise also spans advising corporate and professional clients on the Official Secrets Acts. With very significant expertise in Closed Material Procedure and the Justice and Security Act 2013 he is able to advise corporate clients on all aspects of the National Security and Investment Act 2021.
His practice includes financial crime, fraud, bribery, and homicide. He has successfully defended clients in several murder trials and continues to represent high-profile individuals, including in a landmark £263 million money laundering case involving NatWest bank.
He has very extensive experience of homicide trials. Since taking silk he has successfully defended in a number of homicide trials: R v AY (prosecution offered no evidence in response to an application to stay proceedings as an abuse of process); R v KK (acquitted of all charges by the jury) and R v MG (acquitted of all charges following successful submission of no case). Prior to taking silk he had extensive experience of prosecuting the full spectrum of homicide trials as a monitoree Treasury Counsel at the Central Criminal Court.
He has additionally been called to the Bar of Northern Ireland.
Called 1995; Lincoln’s Inn; South Eastern Circuit; A-G’s Special Advocate panel since 2005; A-G’s Special Counsel (PII) panel since 2004; List of Counsel for the defence and victims at the International Criminal Court since 2005; Appointed King's Counsel 2019.
Urdu, Hindi, Punjabi.
Academy of European Law, Trier, Germany.