Dec 12 verdict on Terengganu sultanah's appeal against Rewcastle-Brown

The Court of Appeal has fixed Dec 12 to decide whether 1MDB whistleblower Clare Rewcastle-Brown is liable for defamation and needs to pay damages to Terengganu Sultanah Nur Zahirah.

The three-person bench chaired by Hadhariah Syed Ismail and comprising judges Mohamed Zaini Mazlan and Azhahari Kamal Ramli, set the verdict date for the royalty’s appeal in her defamation suit against Sarawak Report founder Rewcastle-Brown (above).

Today was the appeal hearing, with oral submissions delivered by the sultanah’s counsel A Vishnu Kumar and Rewcastle-Brown’s lawyer Americk Sidhu.

On Oct 31 last year, the Kuala Lumpur High Court dismissed the sultanah’s civil action over statements in Rewcastle-Brown’s book “The Sarawak Report - The Inside Story of 1MDB”.

The court ruled that from the perspective of a reasonable reader, the impugned statements do not give rise to several imputations complained of by the sultanah.

During the hearing of the civil action, the sultanah testified her denial of involvement in 1MDB’s predecessor Terengganu Investment Authority (TIA). In contrast, Rewcastle-Brown testified that it was an honest mistake on her part about the alleged defamatory portion in the book.

Terengganu Sultanah Nur Zahirah

The book’s later editions removed the purported defamatory portion.

After the civil court ruling, the sultanah appealed to the Court of Appeal.

On Nov 21, 2018, the sultanah filed the defamation action, which named Rewcastle-Brown and Gerakbudaya Enterprise publisher Chong Ton Sin and printing company Vinlin Press Sdn Bhd as defendants.

The plaintiff alleged that Rewcastle-Brown used defamatory statements in the book, which Vinlin Press printed in August 2018.

The plaintiff also claimed she was not involved in either the administration or the setting up of TIA and alleged that the statements caused her embarrassment and tarnished her reputation.

She was seeking RM100 million in damages and wanted the second defendant Chong to withdraw the books containing the statements and to stop the third defendant, Vinlin Press, from printing more copies of the book.

In their statement of defence, the three defendants denied they had ever accused the sultanah of being involved in corruption.

Impugned statement

Meanwhile, a separate criminal court case against Rewcastle-Brown, who is not in Malaysia, about the same portion of the book is still ongoing.

During the online appeal hearing earlier today, Vishnu submitted that the High Court had erred in ruling that the impugned statement in the first edition run of 2000 copies of the book had defamed the Sultanah.

The lawyer pointed out that the civil court judge had interpreted the impugned statement by making a detailed and overly elaborated analysis of the words by referring to the dictionary meaning of said comments.

Vishnu told the appellate bench that the words' over-elaboration is unnecessary as it should be interpreted casually as a reasonable ordinary reader would understand the impugned statement.

The lawyer said Rewcastle-Brown's admission of the mistake in a paragraph of the first edition of her book (with later editions of the work removing that allegedly defamatory portion) does not absolve the respondent from the consequences of defamation.

Did not err

He adds she should have tried to verify the information before publication.

However, Americk counter-submitted that the High Court had not erred in ruling there was no defamation in the impugned statement in the first edition of Rewcastle-Brown's book.

The lawyer pointed out that the lower court had rightly found that the statement does not imply that the Sultanah had interfered in the administration of the state of Terengganu.

Americk contended that the impugned statement never contained a suggestion that the Sultanah was involved in any wrongdoing.

The lawyer added that a reasonable reader of the statement would not presume the worst of the appellant as he or she would read the entire book and see the bigger picture the publication was touching on then, which was the unfolding 1MDB scandal. - Mkini