THE Kuala Lumpur Sessions Court has dismissed a criminal charge against former minister Zaid Ibrahim over a 2015 blog post criticising Prime Minister Najib Razak over 1Malaysia Development Bhd.

Justice Zaman Mohd Noor said as Zaid was charged under Section 233(1)(a) of the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998, the “victim should have to be called in” to ascertain whether he felt “annoyed” by the post.

Najib did not appear as a witness.

Deputy public prosecutor Wan Shaharuddin Wan Ladin said the government would appeal today’s judgment.

Zaid was charged with using the internet to consciously issue offensive remarks via the blog post, with the “intention to hurt the feelings of others”.

In his post, he said Najib was obstructing investigations into 1MDB and called on Malaysians to support Dr Mahathir Mohamad in efforts to remove the prime minister from office.

Wan Shaharuddin had earlier argued that Najib’s presence was not required.

Zaman said Zaid was “accused of insinuating that Najib was a dangerous person” under Section 233(1)(a), which specified that “another person”, and not an unidentified group, had been annoyed or offended by the post.

“After hearing the witness statements and viewing the exhibits, and after deliberating at length, I find that the prosecution has not proven a prima facie case (against Zaid),” he said in his decision.

“Therefore, I order that Zaid be allowed to walk free and the charge dropped without the need to call the defence.”

“I feel relieved. I want to thank the judge,” Zaid told reporters later.

“It’s very refreshing to see a judge clearly not being worried to make the right decision. So, I’m happy today.

“I think there’s an interesting point that developed from this case, which I hope will set a precedence for future cases under Section 233(1)(a), which they use all the time against people they don’t like.”

The blog post, titled “Rally Behind Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad”, contained the text of a speech delivered at the Royal Selangor Club in Kuala Lumpur on September 2, 2015.

Zaid’s co-counsel, Americk Sidhu, said the former minister was not charged under Section 233(1)(b), where the terminology used was “any person”.

“That’s a general annoyance. At this stage, they chose to charge under Section 233(1)(a), so the specific person ought to have been called.

“But in this situation, they called in a variety of witnesses for the prosecution. But it was contradictory evidence.

“Most of the witnesses said they were not annoyed by the speech given. That’s the basis of the judge deciding it was not a prima facie case.”

He added that Section 233(1)(a) was to protect individuals from cyberbullying.

If convicted under the section, a person can be fined up to RM50,000, or jailed up to a year, or both, upon conviction.

There may be a further fine of RM1,000 for every day the offence is continued after conviction. – January 11, 2018.