KUALA LUMPUR: Youth and Sports Minister Khairy Jamaluddin failed to amend his defence statement in the RM100mil defamation suit brought against him by Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.
High Court Judicial Commissioner S.M.Komathy Suppiah dismissed the application by Khairy after meeting the parties in chambers.
JC Komathy held that the proposed amendment do not reflect with any clarity the alternative meaning of the words.
She ordered Khairy to pay RM5,000 to Anwar in costs. Lawyer Jeffrey John acted for Khairy while counsel Datuk Sulaiman Abdullah appeared for Anwar.
The court has set Nov 22 for case management.
On Aug 13, High Court judge Justice Hue Siew Kheng made the decision to preclude Khairy from defending the suit for failing to comply with her order to file various documents for the trial.
The Court of Appeal had in June held that the Umno Youth chief can defend himself in the suit after it allowed his appeal and ordered for the trial to be heard before a new judge.
Anwar filed his RM100mil defamation suit against Khairy on March 7, 2008 alleging that the latter, as then Umno Youth deputy chief had uttered defamatory words and caused the posting on websites, including Malaysiakini.com of a video clip entitled “Anwar and kin no threat”.
The PKR leader claimed the video clip on Malaysiakini.com contained defamatory words spoken by Khairy at a ceramah in Lembah Pantai here on or about Feb 20, 2008.
He said the defamatory words, among others, meant that he was involved in activities contradictory to Islam, was not of good character and was not fit to hold political or other positions.
In his statement of defence filed on Oct 8, 2010, Khairy said he relied on the defence of justification and qualified privilege.
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