The Kuala Lumpur High Court has fixed four days to hear the defamation suit by Bersih chairperson Maria Chin Abdullah against Sungai Besar Umno chief Jamal Md Yunos.

Maria’s lawyer Melissa Sasidaran said the trial dates are from Oct 9 until Oct 12.

In addition, the trial judge Mohd Zaki Abdul Wahab had also fixed May 22 for case management.

“Both sides are to sort out and finalise the common documents that will be used during the trial, so the case management is to update court on that,” she told Malaysiakini after case management today before the judge.

Maria is suing Jamal over claims the latter had allegedly made on two occasions, on Sept 28 and Oct 4 last year.

At his Sept 28 press conference, Jamal supposedly claimed that Bersih had been infiltrated by IS operatives, and the pro-electoral reform group intends to topple the government by surrounding places such as KLIA, KLIA2, and Putrajaya.

He allegedly repeated his allegations after lodging a police report on the matter at Bukit Aman.

His purported remarks were made in the run-up to the Bersih 5 rally on Nov 19, which saw some 40,000 participants descend onto the streets of Kuala Lumpur. Some 4,000 participants also joined a counter-rally led by Jamal on the same day, also in Kuala Lumpur.