The blogger who was ordered to pay damages for defaming Information, Communications and Culture Minister Rais Yatim has filed an appeal against the recent High Court ruling.

Amizudin Ahmat, 42, who was ordered to pay Rais RM300,000 for posting a defamatory article against Rais on his blog - sharpshooterblogger.blogspot. com - filed his appeal this morning at the Kuala Lumpur courts through his defence counsel, Ong Chin Wen.

NONE Ong ( right in photo, with Amizudin ) said the defence believes they “have a basis to appeal” against the judgment, but did not give much details as he said they are still “in discussions”.

Rais had in January this year filed a suit against Amizudin, who is also a PKR Youth committee member, over a Malay language article the latter posted on his blog which accused the minister of raping his then Indonesian maid.

In his suit, the 69-year-old minister said the entire words in the article were malicious and defamatory against him and that the words in the article were made out to show he was guilty of a serious offence of rape and that he was capable of murdering his maid.

An Indonesian news portal however quoted a woman, who worked as a maid for Rais for eight years, as denying that she had ever been mistreated or raped by her employer.

High Court judge Justice Zabariah Mohd Yusof ordered Amizudin to pay RM300,000 in damages, on top of paying RM100,000 in costs to Rais over the defamatory article.

Zabariah ruled that the quantum included compensatory, aggravated and exemplary damages, stating that the amount was reasonable considering the facts and nature of the allegation.