PUTRAJAYA: The Court of Appeal has set June 18 to hear Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin’s appeal against a High Court decision ordering him to pay RM1.35mil to DAP adviser Lim Guan Eng in a defamation suit relating to the revocation of tax exemption for Yayasan Albukhary.
Lim’s lawyer Guok Ngek Seong, confirmed the hearing date when contacted by Bernama after case management on Thursday (June 5).
He said the appellate court will hear both Muhyiddin’s appeal and Lim’s cross-appeal together. Lim’s appeal concerned the High Court’s decision not to award judgment interest.
In Nov 2024, the High Court in Kuala Lumpur allowed Lim’s suit against Muhyiddin and ordered the former prime minister (Muhyiddin) to pay RM350,000 for each of the three statements leading to RM1.05mil in general damages, RM150,000 for aggravated damages and RM150,000 for exemplary damages.
High Court judge Roz Mawar Rozain had also issued an order for Muhyiddin to retract all three defamatory statements from all of his social media accounts immediately and granted an injunction order to restrain Muhyiddin from further repeating the statements.
On March 27, 2023, Lim filed a lawsuit against Muhyiddin for allegedly making three defamatory Facebook statements on March 9, 11, and 12, 2023, involving him in the tax exemption issue.
Reports on the matter were subsequently published in several newspapers and news portals.
In her judgment, Roz Mawar held that the three statements were defamatory and found Lim, who was also the former Finance Minister, had proved his case against Muhyiddin.
She said Muhyiddin’s conduct amounted to aggravating factors as he made no attempt to verify allegations before the publications and had continued with the publication of the second statement despite Lim’s denials.
Muhyiddin, meanwhile, had contended that the three statements were merely comments or opinions based on a letter he received from Yayasan Al-Bukhary. — Bernama
