Ex-AG Apandi’s attempt to appeal Kit Siang’s defamation suit loss meet end road.
PUTRAJAYA: The Federal Court has dismissed former Attorney General Tan Sri Mohamed Apandi Ali’s application for permission to proceed with his appeal against the Court of Appeal’s rejection of his RM10 million claim against DAP veteran Lim Kit Siang. A three-judge panel, consisting of Chief Justice Tun Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat, Federal Court judges Datuk Nallini Pathmanathan, and Datuk Abu Bakar Jais, ruled that it was not a case warranting the court’s permission.
Tengku Maimun stated that the High Court had made its decision based on its assessment of the evidence and existing legal principles, and the Court of Appeal had upheld that decision.
She added that the five legal questions proposed by Mohamed Apandi’s lawyer were not new issues that needed to be argued in the Federal Court, and she ordered Mohamed Apandi to pay RM30,000 in costs.
Following Mohamed Apandi’s failure to obtain permission, the Court of Appeal’s decision on November 2 last year, which favored Lim, remains in effect.
Mohamed Apandi, 74, filed the application for permission to appeal on December 1 last year after his appeal was dismissed by the Court of Appeal.
His lawsuit against the DAP veteran concerned an article about the 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) scandal that was dismissed by the Kuala Lumpur High Court on May 23, 2022.
In his 2019 lawsuit, Mohamed Apandi claimed that on May 6, 2019, Lim wrote and caused the publication of an article titled “Dangerous fallacy to think Malaysia’s on the road to integrity” on Malaysiakini.
He alleged that the defamatory words in the article implied that he was involved in criminal activities and complicit in the 1MDB financial scandal, was immoral, lacked integrity, was unethical, and had abused his power as Attorney General.
Mohamed Apandi, who served as Attorney General from July 27, 2015, to June 4, 2018, argued that the defamatory words were false and written with the intent to tarnish his image and credibility as the former Attorney General of Malaysia for cheap publicity.
He sought aggravated and exemplary damages and RM10 million in general damages, an injunction to prevent Lim and/or his agents from republishing the alleged defamatory words, and other relief deemed appropriate by the court.
High Court Judge Datuk Azimah Omar (now a Court of Appeal judge), in dismissing Mohamed Apandi’s lawsuit, ruled that Lim successfully justified the privilege he was entitled to when making the statement because the 1MDB scandal involved crimes, breaches of law, and social and economic impacts on the national economy, including on the morality of the nation’s leaders and top agencies.
Mohamed Apandi was represented by lawyers Liew Teck Huat, Rueben Mathiavaranam, M. Visvanathan, and V. Sanjay Nathan, while Sangeet Kaur Deo, Harshaan Zamani, and Simranjit Kaur represented Lim.
