KUALA LUMPUR, July 9 —The High Court here today rejected an application by Khairy Jamaluddin to amend his statement of defence in Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s defamation suit against him.
The Youth and Sports Minister had applied to insert Anwar’s second conviction by the Federal Court on Feb 10 for sodomising his personnal assistant Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan, in his defence statement.
Judicial commissioner S. Nantha Balan made the decision in chambers during which the applicant’s lawyer Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah and Anwar’s lawyer J. Leela were present.
Muhammad Shafee told reporters that the court rejected Khairy’s application after deciding that a criminal conviction could not be used as character evidence in a civil suit under Section 43 and Section 55 of the Evidence Act 1950.
The lawyer also disclosed that the dates for the defamation trial fixed for Aug 14 till Aug 21 had been vacated pending an appeal of today’s decision at the Court of Appeal.
Meanwhile, Leela said the court ordered Khairy to pay RM5,000 in costs to Anwar.
On March 7, 2008, Anwar filed the suit against Khairy seeking damages amounting to RM100 million.
He alleged that Khairy who was at the time, UMNO Pemuda vice chief had slandered him in a speech at Lembah Pantai on Feb 20, 2008.
Anwar alleged that a video clip of the defendant’s address headlined, ‘Anwar and kin no threat’ was also circulated in the websites including Malaysiakini.com.
Khairy in his statement of defence filed on Oct 8, 2010, relied on “justification” and “qualified privilege”.
Last April 6, the Federal Court allowed Khairy’s appeal to amend his statement of defence and insert the federal court’s judgement on Sept 2, 2004 to convict Anwar in his first sodomy case.
The High Court had on Oct 9, 2013, rejected Khairy’s application to amend his defence statement in the defamation suit. — Bernama
