THE Kuala Lumpur High Court will hear an application by the Terengganu sultanah to bypass a full trial by issuing a summary judgment on whether a passage in Clare Rewcastle-Brown’s book, The Sarawak Report: The Inside Story of the 1MDB Exposé, is defamatory.

Justice Ahmad Zaidi Ibrahim set September 10 for the hearing. Parties will be required to file their written submissions by then. 

Rewcastle-Brown, publisher Gerakbudaya Enterprise and printer Vinlin Press Sdn Bhd today submitted their affidavits-in-reply to Sultanah Nur Zahirah’s application for her defamation suit to be decided by summary judgment. 

The sultanah filed the application on May 13 under Order 14A of the Rules of Court 2012.

If the application is successful, this will mean that a defamatory meaning would have been established. However, there would still need to be a full trial on the defences raised by Rewcastle-Brown and the other two respondents. Should any of the defences raised prove successful, the sultanah’s claim would have to be dismissed without damages being awarded.

The sultanah is seeking RM300 million in damages from the three defendants, or RM100 million each.

Judges are granted discretion to dispose of a defamation case on points of law, without the need for a trial where witnesses are called to testify.

The sultanah is suing Rewcastle-Brown over allegedly defamatory content in her book.

The offending statement appears on page 3 of Rewcastle-Brown’s book, which reads:

“In April he (Low Taek Jho) had netted himself an official advisory role at the newly set-up sovereign wealth fund designed to invest the oil revenues from the Malaysian State of Terengganu (since elections in this oil state had just been won by the opposition, BN was ruthlessly looking for ways to divert its revenues into a federally controlled entity).

“Jho was also friendly with a key player in Terengganu, the wife of the sultan, whose acquiescence was needed to set up the fund and he later cited her support as having been crucial to his obtaining the advisory position. This was the fund that would shortly be converted into the scandalous entity known as 1MDB…”

In the second edition, the word ‘wife’ was replaced with ‘sister’.

Rewcastle-Brown had said the error was an editing mistake and maintains there is no defamatory content.

The sultanah has denied meeting Low or backing him for any role in the state investor or Terengganu Investment Authority, as 1MDB used to be known.

She has also denied being involved in either organisation and interfering in government affairs.

Her lawyers rejected offers to settle the suit last October, saying the terms failed to meet the criterion of an unconditional apology. – June 25, 2019.