SHAH ALAM, 5 Sept: Yesterday, the Shah Alam High Court dismissed a suit by filed by Yayasan Basmi Kemiskinan (YBK) against Selangor Chief Minister Tan Sri Abdul Khalid Ibrahim and former Selangor assemblyman Yaakob Sapari allegedly for slandering the foundation at a press conference four years ago.
Quoting from Bernama, Judge Datuk Yaacob Md Sam came to the decision after finding that Abdul Khalid and Yaakob’s statements were reasonable or fair comments based on information as well as the government records or official documents.
“As such, the court feels that the defence by the first defendant that he, as Selangor Menteri Besar and the second defendant as a state assemblyman (then) had a legal, social and moral obligation to ensure land belonging to YBK or PYBK were administered well and in the public interest,” he said.
In connection to this, he said, the court found Abdul Khalid and Yaakob to have successfully proven the balance of probabilities that their statements were protected by the defence of fair comment based on public or general interest and the defence of qualified privilege based on facts.
Judge Datuk Yaacob Md Sam ordered YBK and two other plaintiffs, Permodalan YBK Sdn Bhd (PYBK) and YBK chairman, Datuk Zainal Abidin Sakom each to pay RM30,000 to Abdul Khalid and RM10,000 to Yaakob as costs.
In a 98-page judgment, Yaacob said the state government, specifically Abdul Khalid had a legal, social and moral obligation as the state chief executive, leader and member of a political party with legitimate and reasonable expectations and interests to make the statements which were claimed to be slanderous to the plaintiffs.
Judge Yaacob also found all the plaintiffs to have failed to prove malice on the part of Abdul Khalid, who was represented by counsel Edmund Bon, and Yaakob, represented by counsel Yusof Rahmat, in connection to the words which allegedly defamed them (the plaintiffs).
On the counter claim by Abdul Khalid who had requested to strike out the suit, the judge said that on Aug 10, 2012, the High Court here had rejected the application with costs and the appeal that followed at the Appeals Court was also rejected while the Menteri Besar’s application for leave to appeal to the Federal Court was also dismissed.
“Based on these facts, the court is of the opinion that the actions by the plaintiffs did not have ulterior motives or intended to harass the first defendant (Abdul Khalid). It was a reasonable course of action and a full hearing was conducted.
In relation to that, he dismissed the counterclaim by Abdul Khalid and set for a cost of RM5,000 to be paid to each plaintiff.
In their statement of claim, the plaintiffs alleged that Abdul Khalid on Feb 24, 2010 had issued a media statement at a press conference entitled “New Information on YBK” and all the contents were reported by the newspaper ‘Suara Keadilan’ until March 9, 2010 under the headline “Zainal Sakom Gadai Tanah YBK”.
ccording to the plaintiffs, Yaakob then made a statement describing Zainal Abidin’s act of mortgaging state land so as to fulfill his personal desires as well as those of his friends as a treacherous act and the statement was published in the same newspaper under the headline “Zainal Sakom Gadai Tanah YBK”.
Subsequently Zainal Abidin claimed that on April 5, 2010, the website http://tvselangor.com published an article with the headline “Kemelut YBK: MB Marah Orang Melayu Tipu Melayu” which reported statements made by Abdul Khalid.
He said all allegations made were baseless, untrue and a serious defamation which adversely affected his reputation and good name in the eyes of the public.
He has sought general, exemplary and aggravated damages, interest at eight per cent, costs and other relief deemed fit by the court. He had also sought an injunction to prevent the defendants from continuing to publish defamatory words against them.
NS
