Rewcastle Brown, 2 others go to apex court to set aside ruling they defamed sultanah

 

The Court of Appeal had ordered Sarawak Report editor Clare Rewcastle Brown (left) and two others to jointly or severally pay Terengganu’s Sultanah Nur Zahirah RM300,000 in damages and another RM120,000 in costs.

PUTRAJAYA: Sarawak Report editor Clare Rewcastle Brown and two others have gone to the Federal Court to set aside a Court of Appeal ruling that they are liable for defamation against Terengganu’s Sultanah Nur Zahirah.

Lawyer Haikaldin Mahyidin said Rewcastle Brown, publisher Chong Ton Sin and printer Vinlin Press Sdn Bhd had filed four legal questions to obtain leave from the apex court.

They must now convince the apex court that novel constitutional or legal questions of public importance are being raised for the first time, in line with Section 96 of the Courts of Judicature Act.

Haikaldin said the leave application was filed on Jan 10 and the Federal Court registry had fixed Feb 13 for case management.

On Dec 12, a three-member Court of Appeal bench ordered the trio to jointly or severally pay the sultanah RM300,000 in damages and another RM120,000 in costs.

Justice Azahari Kamal Ramli, who delivered the unanimous decision in allowing the sultanah’s appeal, said the trial judge had erred in dismissing the suit in 2022.

Justices Hadhariah Syed Ismail and Zaini Mazlan were the other judges on the panel.

The High Court had ruled that a statement in Rewcastle Brown’s book, The Sarawak Report: The Inside Story of the 1MDB Expose, was not defamatory of the sultanah.

The sultanah initiated the RM300 million defamation suit in 2018, claiming that Rewcastle Brown had disparaged her in the book, which tells the story behind Sarawak Report’s investigation into the 1MDB scandal.

She claimed the statement suggested that she was involved in corrupt practices, had interfered in Terengganu’s administration and had used her status to influence the establishment of the Terengganu Investment Authority (TIA), as 1MDB was earlier known.

She further claimed that the statement could be construed to mean that she had helped Low Taek Jho (better known as Jho Low) secure his position as adviser to TIA.

In her defence, Rewcastle Brown claimed that she had made an “honest mistake” in identifying the “key player” in the impugned statement as the “wife of the sultan”. She claimed that she should have referred to the sultan’s sister instead.

Meanwhile, Haaziq Pillai Abdullah, a lawyer representing the sultanah, said he would be sending a letter of demand that the trio pay the judgment sum and costs as ordered by the Court of Appeal. - FMT