The High Court has dismissed a defamation suit brought by Terengganu’s Sultanah Nur Zahirah against Sarawak Report editor Clare Rewcastle-Brown and two others.
Judicial commissioner Lee Kien How @ Johan Abdullah said a statement in a book, “The Sarawak Report: The Inside Story of the 1MDB Expose” was not defamatory.
“To my mind the plaintiff’s reputation was not degraded,” he said in an oral decision delivered online this evening.
The impugned statement read: “(Fugitive businessman Low Taek Jho, or Jho Low) was also friendly with a key player in Terengganu, the wife of the sultan, whose acquiescence was needed to set up the fund and he later cited her support as having been crucial to his obtaining the advisory position.”
The judge also ordered RM80,000 in costs to be paid to Rewcastle-Brown, publisher Chong Ton Sin and printer Vinlin Press Sdn Bhd. – FMT