Court also orders Penang Chief Minister to pay 5% interest per annum on the damages fee and RM40,000 in legal costs.
GEORGE TOWN: Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng has been ordered by the court to pay RM500,000 in damages to state opposition leader Jahara Hamid for calling her a “racist grandmother” in December 2013.
Judicial Commissioner Nordin Hassan also ordered Lim to pay the damages with a 5% interest per annum including RM40,000 in legal costs, The Star Online reported.
Apart from these, Nordin granted Jahara, the Teluk Air Tawar assemblyperson, an injunction to prevent Lim, from repeating the remark and to further retract his statement in the media.
Lim, who is also DAP secretary-general received another blow when the court dismissed his counterclaim that Jahara had falsely linked him to the operator of Mazu Temple on Pulau Jerajak and further alleged that Penang Island was to be renamed Penang Mazu Island.
Lim’s counsel N Mureli has been instructed to file an appeal. Jahaberdeen Mohamed Yunoos represented Jahara.
“It was unprofessional for a chief minister to resort to name calling on an opposition leader. It was slanderous,” Jahara said soon after the incident in 2013, adding that Lim had brought disrepute to both to the assembly and the chair of chief minister.
“As a chief minister, Lim did not show any respect to my freedom of speech in the assembly. I’m not a racist. I was only highlighting a public issue,” she had said then.
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