S Nallakaruppan has yet to submit to the court his list of witnesses for the defamation suit filed against him by PKR de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim, Anwar’s lawyer Afiq M Noor said.

Afiq told Malaysiakini after the case management in the High Court in Kuala Lumpur yesterday that Nallakaruppan had never said he intended to call the PKR deputy president Azmin Ali’s wife, Shamsidar Taharin, as a witness.

“The list of witnesses can be given to us before the case starts on Feb 21,” he said.

Malay-language daily Utusan Malaysia had previously named the People’s Uprising Rally of Jan 12 as ‘ Himpunan Shamsidar ’ after Nallakaruppan claimed that the rally was to ensure Shamsidar would not testify in the case.

The case was filed on March 26 last year over defamatory statements Nallakarupan is said to have made about Anwar, which were front-paged in the Utusan Malaysia edition of March 20.

The High Court later allowed Nallakarupan and Utusan Malaysia to retain a large part of their defence statements, after Anwar applied to strike out parts of the statements.

Afiq said that both parties have agreed to appeal the High Court decision before the Court of Appeal, and the case management for this is scheduled to be held on Feb 19.

The other lawyers representing Anwar in his suit are Sulaiman Abdullah, Sivarasa Rasiah, Latheefa Koya, and N Surendran, while Nallakarupan is represented by Muhammad Shafee Abdullah.