A FORMER secretariat head in the Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC) will apply to the Kuala Lumpur High Court for a writ to be served out of jurisdiction to UK-based Sarawak Report editor Clare Rewcastle-Brown.

This is after Rewcastle-Brown said she had received a letter of demand by email more than a week ago, in which V. Mabel Muthayyah seeks RM100 million in damages over the publication of an article in 2015.

Rewcastle-Brown said Mabel had failed to specify the jurisdiction in which she seeks to sue her.

Mabel is suing Rewcastle-Brown for defamation over an article on the late deputy public prosecutor Anthony Kevin Morais.

Mabel’s lawyer David Gurupatham told The Malaysian Insight Rewcastle-Brown had made a serious allegation against his client in the article, that she had asked Morais’ family to expedite the cremation of his remains to prevent a second post-mortem.

The Sarawak Report article “How AG’s Office connived to prevent a second post-mortem on Kevin Morais – exclusive exposé” was published following Morais’ murder the same year.

Gurupatham had previously said the Sarawak Report editor had refused to accept a legal letter demanding a public apology.

“Since Rewcastle-Brown has copious documents and evidence of a conspiracy at the highest levels of the AGC, she should be happy to name the conspirators and explain why this evidence was not handed to the police,” Gurupatham said.

“My client is sure Rewcastle-Brown would be happy to accept service. After all, it started off as a Sarawak Report exposé.

“In any event, now that she is aware of the suit and it is public knowledge that she is currently engaged in litigation in Malaysia, she may appoint solicitors to accept service so we don’t have to go through the process of getting leave and serving her in the UK.”

Rewcastle-Brown previously said the article was published in December 2015 in the United Kingdom, which had a statute of limitation of one year for libel action from the date on which the cause of action was accrued.

The article was not published in Malaysia as the Sarawak Report site was banned at the time “and blocked by the government of the day”, she said.

Morais was kidnapped from his car in the middle of traffic on his way to work in September 2015. His body were found encased in cement in a steel drum.

Gurupatham previously said his client had filed a police report over the article in December 2015 but had not pursued the matter further because she did not want to affect the investigation into Morais’ murder.

He said Mabel, who is now a sessions court judge, decided to sue after the Sarawak Report article “kept resurfacing” and was “recirculated again on Facebook in May this year”.

She is claiming aggravated and exemplary damages, as well as an injunction from further defamation and a mandatory order for the article to be removed from the website.

The Morais murder is now in the courts with a former army doctor and five accomplices on trial. – July 20, 2019.