Dr Dzulkefly’s lawyer withdraws from the defamation suit case against Najib
KUALA LUMPUR: The lawyer for Datuk Seri Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad withdrew from representing the Minister of Health in the case of a lawsuit against Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak regarding the transmission on the cronyism issue at the High Court here on Tuesday. During the case proceedings before Judicial Commissioner Arziah Mohamed Apandi, lawyer Datuk SN Nair said he wanted to withdraw from representing Dzulkefly as a plaintiff.
The application was not opposed by the lawyer, Muhammad Farhan Muhammad Shafee, who represented the former Prime Minister.
The court then allowed the application and postponed the hearing, which was supposed to start from Tuesday to Thursday.
Arziah set new dates for March 5, 6, and 7, 2025, while case management will start on July 10.
Dzulkefly, who filed the suit in a personal capacity, claimed that Najib had uploaded a defamatory message on his Facebook on August 24, 2020, regarding the issue of cronyism, along with an attachment displaying an article in Sinar Harian dated January 28, 2019 with a picture of the plaintiff’s face (then a former Minister).
He claimed that the statement meant that the plaintiff practiced cronyism by offering positions or appointments to relatives without going through any objective assessment of the capability of a position in government or private companies.
The plaintiff claimed that Najib had published the slanderous message with the intention of attacking his person, degrading him, and humiliating him, and that it was politically motivated and clearly intended to slander and damage his reputation.
Therefore, the plaintiff applied for an injunction to prevent Najib, the defendant, or his agents from continuing to publish or disseminate the message in any way.
The plaintiff also requested an order for the defendant to make a written apology published on his Facebook account and publicized in the local newspaper of his choice within seven days from the date of the order, in addition to requesting general, severe, exemplary damages and other relief deemed appropriate by the court.
However, the former Prime Minister claimed in his defense statement that the post on the issue of cronyism on his Facebook account had nothing to do with the Minister of Health.
Najib claimed that the publication referred to the coalition Pakatan Harapan (PH); therefore, no defamation had been made against the plaintiff (Dzulkefly).
