The Court of Appeal in Putrajaya today dismissed Youth and Sports Minister Khairy Jamaluddin’s appeal to amend his statement of defence in the RM100 million defamation suit brought against him by Anwar Ibrahim.

A three-member panel chaired by Court of Appeal Judge Abdul Aziz Abdul Rahim said the court was not persuaded by the arguments forwarded by Khairy’s counsel Muhammad Shafee Abdullah.

He said the High Court came to a correct finding to disallow the amendments.

Justice Abdul Aziz, who presided on the panel with Justices David Wong Dak Wah and Abang Iskandar Abang Hashim, ordered Khairy to pay RM5,000 in legal costs to Anwar.

The matter is fixed for case management tomorrow at the High Court in Kuala Lumpur.

On March 7, 2008, Anwar sued Khairy, alleging that the latter, who was then Umno Youth deputy chief, had uttered defamatory words and caused the posting on websites, including Malaysiakini.com of a video clip entitled ‘Anwar and kin no threat’.

The opposition leader claimed the video clip on Malaysiakini.com contained defamatory words allegedly 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.

On Oct 9, last year, the High Court dismissed Khairy's application to amend his statement of defence in the suit.

Hence, he brought the matter up for appeal to the Court of Appeal.

Anwar was represented by lawyer J Leela.

- Bernama