Umno Youth Chief Asyraf Wajdi Dusuki in a court filing denied that his Twitter posting on the issue of cronyism was referring to former health minister Dzulkefly Ahmad at all.
The former deputy minister in the Prime Minister’s Department In Charge of Islamic Affairs made this contention in his statement of defence against a defamation suit by the Amanah member.
It was previously reported that Dzulkefly filed the writ of summons at the Kuala Lumpur High Court on Dec 31 last year, over a posting on Asyraf’s Twitter account uploaded on Aug 24, 2020.
The Kuala Selangor MP claimed that the Twitter upload made a defamatory allegation of nepotism against him in relation to the appointment of his daughter to the board of Amanah Ikhtiar Malaysia (AIM).
In the statement of defence filed on Feb 23 and sighted by Malaysiakini, Asyraf contended that the online posting was instead a comment about the issue of a letter in support proposing the appointment of the son of Deputy Defence Minister Ikmal Hisham Abdul Aziz, as a board member of Pharmaniaga Berhad.
The defendant claimed that the issue also involved the alleged agreement of the appointment proposal by then senior defence minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob. Ismail Sabri is now Prime Minister.
Asyraf contended that his online post had referred to several newspaper articles from Berita Harian Online and Utusan Malaysia about the issue, whereby he claimed to have questioned and given his comment about the issues of nepotism and cronyism that arose during the previous Pakatan Harapan administration.
The defendant claimed that as a politician and former deputy minister, he has a political and social responsibility and obligation to raise current issues of public interest for the attention of the general public, as well as give his appropriate views, comment and opinion about the issues.
“The defendant’s posting did not at all referred and/or can be understood to be referring to the plaintiff, the identity of the plaintiff, and/or the reputation of the plaintiff, directly or indirectly,” Asyraf contended.
The defendant also denied he had malicious intent in his Twitter posting is accompanied by a Sinar Harian article showing the plaintiff’s picture, contending that it merely meant to show the issue of nepotism and cronyism that was raised by the same newspaper article on Jan 28, 2019. The PH coalition was still in power that year.
Asyraf claimed that the said Sinar Harian article clearly showed Dzulkefly having given his response to the allegation of nepotism linked to the appointment of his daughter to AIM board.
The defendant also raised justification and fair comment among other lines of defence against the plaintiff’s defamation civil action.
Under Malaysia’s law of civil suits, justification is a defence that the statements or allegations are true, and if proven successful in court, this would act as an absolute defence against the legal action.
The defence of fair comment is one where the impugned statement was made as a fair comment (rather than as a statement of fact) over an issue of public interest.
Dzulkefly is represented by lawyers from law firm SN Nair & Partners, while counsel from Shahrul Hamidi & Haziq acted for Asyraf. - Mkini
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