Former Perak menteri besar Mohammad Nizar Jamaluddin was awarded RM250,000 by the High Court in by Kuala Lumpur today as damages, in his suit against Utusan Malaysia over the WWW1 car number plate issue.

Lawyer Fitri Asmuni confirmed that Nizar has been awarded general and exemplary damages after judge Rosnaini Saub found Utusan liable for defamation and awarded the sum as damages.

"However, Justice Rosnaini did not award aggravated damages," Asmuni said when contacted.

The court also ordered Utusan Malaysia to pay RM30,000 in costs.

Justice Rosnaini ruled that the Utusan Malaysia journalist was careless or did not consider the accuracy of his report.

"The reporter did not seem interested in finding out whether the report was true or otherwise. Hence, it can be concluded that what was written was with ill intent.

"Hence, the defence of justification and qualified privilege cannot be accepted here," she said.

Based on the balance of probabilities, the judge said, the court found there was 'express malice' or ill-intent as the reporter did not contact Nizar on what he had posted on Twitter .

She also noted that the reporter did not have any problem contacting Johor Umno Youth chief over the matter, but not Nizar.

Nizar can be criticsed 

Justice Rosnaini said while she agreed one could criticise Nizar for his tweet, it did not give the defendant ( Utusan Malaysia ) the right to twist and put up wrong facts defamatory to the plaintiff based on what he had tweeted.

She said while the written article was on Nizar's tweet, it did not include the whole message.

In awarding the damages, Justice Rosnaini found that the author of the article had added some things in the article that were not reflective of Nizar's tweet.

Nizar had filed separate suits against Utusan Malaysia and Syarikat Televisyen Malaysia Sdn Bhd (TV3) on this matter. However, he lost his suit against TV3.