KUALA LUMPUR: The attorney-general (AG) has rejected Sarawak Report editor Clare Rewcastle Brown’s representation asking for the prosecution to withdraw a criminal defamation charge brought against her.
Her lawyer Guok Ngek Seng said he received a letter to that effect late last month.
“I will make another representation in due course,” he told FMT after a mention of his client’s case before High Court deputy registrar Catherine Nicholas.
In September 2021, Rewcastle Brown was charged in absentia with defaming Terengganu’s Sultanah Nur Zahirah in a book released in Malaysia five years ago.
The following month, Rewcastle Brown applied for the case to be transferred from the magistrates’ court in Kuala Terengganu to Kuala Lumpur, and later for it to be struck out.
The applications were scheduled to be heard today before Justice Zaini Mazlan but were vacated after the judge was elevated to the Court of Appeal last month.
When contacted, Nicholas said the case is likely to be heard before Justice K Muniandy who will report for duty on Feb 28. She has fixed it for further mention on March 10.
Muniandy is currently serving in the civil division of the Shah Alam High Court.
Deputy public prosecutor Nur Haslinda Che Seman appeared for the prosecution.
In December last year, Rewcastle Brown, a journalist based in the United Kingdom, made representations through her lawyers for the discontinuance of the criminal action against her after another High Court dismissed a RM300 million civil defamation suit brought by the sultanah against her and three others.
Judicial commissioner John Lee Kien How @ Johan Lee had on Oct 31 ruled that a statement complained of in Rewcastle Brown’s book, “The Sarawak Report: The Inside Story of the 1MDB Expose”, which was the subject matter of the suit, was not defamatory of the sultanah. - FMT
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