Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak's defamation suit against Petaling Jaya Utara MP Tony Pua for his Facebook Live posting is now tentatively set for trial for five days beginning April 23 at the Kuala Lumpur High Court.

The date was fixed today following case management before Justice Mohd Zaki Abdul Wahab in chambers.

The suit which is the PM's second against Pua who is also DAP national publicity secretary is over Pua's video post where he suggested the tabling of the Syariah Courts (Criminal Jurisdiction) Act 1965 or Act 355 in Parliament by Najib was to divert attention from the 1MDB scandal.

Pua's lawyer Tan Cheng Leong said the two parties have also been informed to prepare witness statements for the case.

Tan also revealed that Pua's application for leave to appeal to the Federal Court to set aside an interim injunction on him to not repeat such words as said in the video has been fixed for May 18.

"The leave to appeal does not affect the trial dates as that involves the interim injunction," Tan told reporters.

The Court of Appeal had upheld Justice Mohd Zaki's decision to impose the injunction where it unanimously ruled that “it is a fact that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west and that Najib did no wrong” with regards to 1MDB.

Najib was represented today by Nor Hazira Abu Haiyan who said that besides Najib, there will be four other witnesses including officers from the Attorney-General's Chambers and the MACC.

Najib in his suit against Pua claimed the opposition lawmaker implied that Najib abused his powers as prime minister by directing the cabinet, through the Dewan Rakyat speaker, to allow the tabling of amendments to Act 355 by PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang last April and this was to divert attention away from the 1MDB issue.

Najib also claimed that Pua's impugned words implied that he had conspired with PAS to split Malay votes among the opposition and practised dirty politics to remain in power.

He further complained that the words uttered meant that he had robbed 1MDB of funds would continue to commit criminal acts to steal from the people and that he had betrayed Malaysians.

In his defence, Pua highlighted the various purported questionable transactions made by 1MDB into Najib's accounts and denied the words he uttered regarding this were defamatory.

The DAP MP further pleaded fair comment, qualified privilege and justification as the purported impugned words were comments on matters of public interest.