The Federal Land Development Authority’s (Felda) RM200 million defamation suit against Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) president Wan Azizah Ismail and three others will be heard separately from its case against former land and cooperative development deputy minister, Dr Tan Kee Kwong.

High Court Judge John Louis O’hara made the decision after hearing submissions from counsel N Surendran, acting for the defendants and Mahinder Singh Dulku and Firoz Ahmad Jamaluddin, counsel for the plaintiff.

Wan Azizah and the other defendants, PKR vice-president Senator Dr Syed Husin Ali; Suara Keadilan editor Dzulkarnain Taib and the paper’s reporter Rusnizam Mahat had applied for the cases to be heard together.

The court refused the application with RM2,000 in costs.

Earlier, Surendran had reasoned that combining the cases would save time as the issues and facts were the same.

    

Felda and its subsidiary Felda Global Ventures Holdings Sdn Bhd filed a defamation suit on Aug 16, 2010 against Wan Azizah, Syed Husin, Dzulkarnain, and Rusnizam for allegedly publishing two libellous articles in PKR’s Suara Keadilan .

Felda claimed the paper published the two articles on June 22 and 29, 2010 titled “Controversy” and “RM662 million building involving only three individuals” which tarnished their image.

On Jan 25, Felda filed another defamation suit related to the same articles, against Tan who had joined PKR in 2008.

Felda claimed Tan had uttered the defamatory statements during his interview with Faizal Zakaria, a Suara Keadilan reporter, a few days before June 22, 2010.

The plaintiff claimed the scandalous nature of the libel could cause extensive losses and damage their reputation both locally and abroad.

On June 17, Judge Zabariah Mohd Yusof set July 2 to 12 to hear the suit against Tan.    

- Bernama