Seputeh Member of Parliament Teresa Kok Suh Sim today withdrew her two suits against Utusan Melayu (M) Berhad and columnist Mohd Zaini Hassan over two articles that were published by the newspaper in 2008.

High Court judge Siti Khadijah S.Hassan Badjenid recorded the settlement after Kok’s lawyer, K Muralidharan, informed the court that his client had agreed to withdraw the suits.

However, no reason was given for the withdrawal.

The court allowed Kok to withdraw the suits against Utusan Melayu and Mohd Zaini with no order as to costs and no liberty to file afresh.

On Oct 9, 2008, Kok, 49, filed a suit against Mohd Zaini, who is now Utusan Melayu assistant group editor 1, and Utusan Melayu over an article, with the title ‘ Azan, Jawi, Jais, UiTM dan ba-alif-ba-ya ’, which was published by Utusan Malaysia on Sept 10, 2008.

She claimed the article had portrayed her as a person who could not be trusted, a bad politician, a racist and anti-Islam.

The other suit was over an article, published by the same newspaper on Sept 8, 2008, on the issue of the ‘azan’ (call for prayer by muezzin) at the Kinrara Mosque.

In the suit, Kok had named Dr Mohamad Khir Toyo and Utusan Melayu (M) Berhad as defendants.

In her statement of claim, Kok stated that on June 26, 2008, Dr Mohamad Khir had quoted from a blog, pembelamelayu.blogspot , and made false allegation against her, while Utusan Melayu published the alleged words uttered by Dr Mohamad Khir in an article, ‘ Ada usaha larang azan di masjid Selangor' .

However, for the case involving the former Selangor menteri besar, the court set Dec 11 for mention for both parties to discuss whether or not to settle the case.

Utusan Melayu was represented by lawyer TKB Mohana Kumar.

- Bernama