The Court of Appeal has ruled against Abdul Taib Mahmud’s application to remove three crucial items from Malaysiakini ’s defence statement in the Sarawak chief minister's lawsuit against the news portal.

NONE However, the court allowed Taib ( left ) to strike out paragraph 12 of Malaysiakini ’s defence that states that the chief minister was abusing the court process.

Taib’s defamation suit against Malaysiakini was filed in 2007.

The three parts of Malaysiakini’s defence challenged by Taib are paragraphs 16, 18 and 19.

Paragraph 16 outlines Malaysiakini’s justification for the article, while paragraph 18 concerns comments by the readers, and paragraph 19 describes Archipelago Shipping’s alleged connection with Taib’s family.

The decision was unanimously made by a three-member panel led by justice Sulong Matjeraie. The two other judges were justices Sulaiman Daud and Abdul Wahab Patail.

Malaysiakini was represented by Fahri Azzat while Taib was represented by Alvin Jullian.

Relevant facts

Taib had lodged the appeal after Kuala Lumpur High Court judge Zabariah Mohd Yusof in 2009 dismissed his application to strike out the four paragraph from Malaysiakini ’s defence statement.

In her judgment, Zabariah said that the paragraphs that Taib wanted removed contained facts that were relevant to the defence.

"In paragraph 18, are the comments made by readers. Since a defence of fair comment has been pleaded, the paragraph is relevent and should not be struck off.

"The facts pleaded in paragraph 19 shows that there is a connection between Archipelago Shipping and the plantiff's family. Therefore, they are relevant," said Zabariah.

In his suit, Taib named Malaysiakini and its editor-in-chief Steven Gan as defendants in a suit over a series of articles highlighting reports on the Japanese authorities arresting members of a shipping cartel transporting logs from Sarawak.

The cartel members had allegedly paid Regent Star, a Hong Kong-based paper manufacturing company reportedly linked to Taib and his family, RM32 million in kickbacks.

The issue had also been reported by numerous news organisations in Japan and elsewhere. Malaysiakini had followed up with its own report a week later, and followed this up with its own special issue on the matter, ' RM32 mil kickbacks - tip of the iceberg '.