English World

Courts asks Anwar, Utusan to settle quantum of damages in RM50mil suit

KUALA LUMPUR: A High Court judge has asked Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim (pic) and Utusan Melayu (M) Bhd to consider a settlement on the quantum of damages over the Opposition leader’s RM50mil defamation suit against it.

Anwar won his claim in January 2013 after the High Court ruled in his favour in his suit against Utusan for publishing two articles on his comments to BBC during an interview on homosexuality laws.

Justice Hue Siew Kheng asked both parties to consider a settlement on quantum of damages after meeting their lawyers in chambers Monday.

Speaking to reporters here, Anwar’s lawyer Shahid Adli Kamarudin said the judge set Feb 9 to know their decision over the matter.

“The judge wants us to consider a settlement over quantum of damages,” he said.

Utusan’s lawyer Muhammad Asmirul Asraf Fadli confirmed the details.

Muhammad Asmirul said the Court of Appeal also set April 7 to hear an appeal by Utusan over the dismissal of its application to use Anwar’s recent sodomy conviction to evaluate his character in civil proceedings for damages.

Justice Hue had dismissed Utusan’s application on Aug 13 last year on grounds that it was filed late and highly prejudicial to the Opposition leader.

In its application filed on July 2, Utusan Melayu applied to amend its defence statement dated Jan 20, 2012 on grounds that there were important facts in relation to Anwar’s criminal conviction to be included for a reasonable assessment of damages to be awarded to the PKR leader.

In his lawsuit, Anwar named Utusan Melayu and its editor-in-chief Datuk Abdul Aziz Ishak as defendants.

In his ruling, High Court judge Justice V. T. Singham (now retired) ordered RM45,000 in costs to be paid by the defendants to Anwar and his damages to be assessed later.

In his judgement, Justice Singham ruled that the words in the articles were defamatory and could bring down Anwar’s reputation and political standing by suggesting he would not make a suitable leader of the Federal Government.

Justice Singham said that nowhere in the BBC interview did Anwar say he promoted gay and lesbian rights.

On Jan 20 2012, Anwar filed the lawsuit alleging that the defendants had published two libellous articles against him on the front page and page 10 of the Utusan Malaysia newspaper, dated Jan 17, 2012, in relation to his BBC interview.

In January last year, the Court of Appeal upheld the High Court’s ruling.-thestar

Komen & Pendapat
Facebook
Twitter

Terbaru


!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+"://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs");