Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng has lost a defamation suit against heritage activist Jimmy Lim and a news portal over a report titled 'Guan Eng has failed, says NGO'.

The Court of Appeal today reversed the decision of the High Court in George Town that ordered Jimmy Lim and Free Malaysia Today to pay RM300,000 to Guan Eng for defamation.

The three-member bench led by Justice Hamid Sultan Abu Backer ruled the article was not defamatory.

"It was written in a temperate tone," Justice Hamid ruled.

The other two judges were Justice Mary Lim and Justice Zabariah Mohd Yusof.

The court did not make any order as to costs.

Guan Eng had complained that the article written by Athi Shankar of Free Malaysia Today had cast severe aspersions against his character and reputation, which had brought him into public odium.

He took offence to the article quoting Jimmy Lim, an architect, as saying that the chief minister had "allowed demolition of many heritage and historical structures, even in the vicinity of the city, to make way for sky-scraping structures, especially hotel and posh condominiums".

Jimmy is also the adviser to the Citizens Awareness Chant Group.

The architect expressed relief over the unanimous decision.

“What I did was for the well-being of Penang. I am non-partisan,” said Jimmy.

“I am fighting for the heritage of Penang, either man-made or natural. I do not have anything against anyone personally,” he said.

Jimmy was represented by lawyer Baljit Singh while Clement G Lopez appeared for FMT.

Lawyer N Mureli appeared for Lim.

Previously, High Court Judicial Commissioner Nordin Hassan had ordered Jimmy and Free Malaysia Today to pay a total of RM300,000 in damages to Guan Eng after ruling that the defendants had failed on the defence of justification, fair comment, public interest and qualified privilege.

The judge said Jimmy had relied on newspaper articles - which might be mere hearsay - when making his comments, and did not back his claims.