Duo unaware of Farhash’s suit till yesterday, says lawyer

Rafique Rashid Ali says Chegubard and Nurpais Ismail only found out about the suit after reading reports about the High Court order against them.

Lawyer Rafique Rashid Ali said his clients will ‘take further action’ after the High Court order to pay businessman Farhash Wafa Salvador RM550,000 in damages for defamation.

PETALING JAYA:

 Bersatu’s Badrul Hisham Shaharin and content creator Nurpais Ismail claim they were unaware of a defamation suit by businessman Farhash Wafa Salvador until they were alerted to the court decision to award the businessman RM550,000 in damages.

Their lawyer, Rafique Rashid Ali, said both men were shocked upon reading reports on the court’s ruling.

“They only found out about the existence of this suit after receiving various messages and also media reports shared by their acquaintances.

“They maintain that they never received the suit or knew about its existence. We have advised them about their rights, and both of them will take further action on this matter,” he said in a statement.

Yesterday, judicial commissioner Arziah Apandi ruled that statements made by Badrul on a podcast last year had portrayed Farhash as corrupt, manipulative and undeserving of his professional and political positions.

She said both Badrul, also known as Chegubard, and Nurpais had acted with malice, with the Bersatu man being the originator of the defamatory statements and the latter disseminating them to vast audiences.

Neither of them entered an appearance in court.

In his suit, Farhash claimed that Badrul and Nurpais had published a series of statements, videos and social media posts on Facebook, TikTok and YouTube in May last year which he said were false, defamatory and malicious.

He claimed the publications accused him of corruption, abuse of power, cronyism, and the misuse of political influence linked to government contracts and political figures. - FMT