Court gags blogger on Rais rape claim

Rais had been hit with of allegations of rape on various blogs.

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 2 — The High Court here has granted an injunction to Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim, stopping blogger Amizudin Ahmat from spreading allegations that the information, communications and culture minister had raped his Indonesian maid.

Justice Zabariah Mohd Yusof granted the ex-parte application today to stop Amizudin from spreading defamatory words about the minister on his blog, sharpshooterblogger.blogspot.com.

In his application, Rais said the words implied that he was guilty of raping his Indonesian maid and was capable of murdering her.

The minister had denied the allegations raised by political foes and bloggers last month.

An Indonesian news portal also reported that the maid, formerly under Rais’ service, denied the minister had ever raped her in the eight years she had worked for him.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak has also cast doubt over the claims, noting the alleged incident had reportedly happened in 2007 but only surfacing recently.

Rais’ denials came after several weeks of a whispering campaign that the claims were contained in US diplomatic cables leaked by whistleblower website, WikiLeaks.

However, no such documents were found on the WikiLeaks website.

Rais has been under pressure from some bloggers in the past few months, particularly over claims that his ministry abused a RM1 billion fund for netbooks meant for poor students.

The allegations have since been cleared.

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