Umno Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin Abu Bakar today obtained the green light at the Kuala Lumpur High Court to stay the trial of the RM100-million defamation suit filed by Anwar Ibrahim against him.

The Court of Appeal granted his application to stay the hearing, which had been fixed for Wednesday, pending his appeal over the High Court’s rejection of his application to set aside an order on Nov 26 to preclude him from defending himself in the suit.

A three-member panel led by Justice Clement Allan Skinner felt that the court was satisfied that there were special circumstances disclosed in Khairy’s application to stay the trial.

Skinner said that if the High Court proceeded with the trial before Khairy’s appeal over the Nov 26 order was heard at the Court of Appeal, it would adversely affect the integrity of appeal and the appeal would also be rendered nugatory if Khairy succeeded.  

He also said that if the trial proceeded and concluded without giving an opportunity to Khairy to defend himself, the prejudice suffered by Khairy could not be compensated by way of costs.  

The court also ordered Khairy, who is the applicant in the stay application, to pay RM30,000 in costs to Anwar, who is the respondent.  

Skinner, who presided on the panel with justices Alizatul Khair Osman Khairuddin and Abdul Aziz Abdul Rahim, also set Jan 3 for case management on Khairy’s appeal over the Nov 26 order.  

On Nov 26, High Court judge Hue Siew Kheng dismissed Khairy’s application to set aside her order to preclude Khairy from defending himself in the suit.

The judge made the order as Khairy’s counsel did not comply with the court’s directions during case management on June 29 for parties to file their lists of witnesses and summary of cases for the purpose of the trial.

On March 7, 2008, Anwar filed the suit against Khairy claiming that the latter, as then Umno Youth deputy chief, had uttered defamatory words and caused the posting on websites, including Malaysiakini.com , a video clip entitled, ‘Anwar and kin no threat’.

 

The opposition leader claimed that the video clip on Malaysiakini.com contained defamatory words spoken by Khairy at a ‘ceramah’ (talk) in Lembah Pantai, here, on or about Feb 20, 2008.

Khairy, in his statement of defence filed on Oct 8, 2010, said he relied on the defence of justification and qualified privilege.

Khairy was represented by lawyer Muhammad Shafee Abdullah while Sulaiman Abdullah acted for Anwar.

- Bernama