THE defamation suit filed by Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) chief commissioner Azam Baki against Center for Combating Cronyism and Corruption senior researcher K. Lalitha has been fixed for four days beginning July 9 next year.

Azam, 59, filed the suit against Lalitha, 50, on January 12 last year over an article published by the Independent News Service (INS) news portal related to a purchase of shares.

Azam’s counsel, Mohd Shahir Md Tahir, said the Kuala Lumpur High Court fixed the new trial dates before judge Akhtar Tahir.

“The next case management is on June 7, 2024, for the filing of pre-trial documents,” said the lawyer when contacted after the online case management before deputy registrar Maslina Selamat today.

The suit was previously set to be heard on January 8-11 next year.

Azam’s statement of claim says the defendant has written two articles titled “Business ties among MACC leadership: how deep does it go? (Part 1)” and “Business ties among MACC leadership: how deep does it go? (Part Two)” and were published in INS on October 26, 2021, and republished on December 15 of the same year.

He also claims that the defendant had shared links to the articles on her Twitter account @LalithaVelvet that were still accessible (at the time the suit was filed).

Azam claims that the articles were sensational, scandalous and offensive and were written and republished with malicious intent to give a bad perception to the readers that the plaintiff was a corrupt civil servant or one who has abused his position as a senior MACC official for his or his sibling’s interests.

He claims that the defamatory publication had tarnished his name and reputation and, therefore, he sought an order to prevent Lalitha or her agents from making, publishing or causing the defamatory statement to be republished besides requesting the defendant to delete the articles and tweets within three days of judgment and to issue an apology to be published in newspapers and social media platforms of his choice.

He is also seeking RM10 million in general damages, aggravated damages, interests, costs and other reliefs deemed fit by the court.

Lalitha, through her statement of defence filed on February 3 last year, claims that the contents of the articles and her tweets involving Azam were obtained from legitimate sources. – Bernama, March 13, 2023.