Farhash files urgent appeal over defamation case vs MalaysiaNow

Politician-turned-businessperson Farhash Wafa Salvador Rizal Mubarak filed a notice for urgency in his appeal against the Shah Alam High Court's decision in his defamation case against MalaysiaNow.

In the letter from his lawyers sighted by Malaysiakini, an urgent certificate has been filed.

The letter, dated Oct 10, also noted that case management is fixed on Monday (Oct 13) before Durratul Izzah Mukmin.

On Oct 8, the Court of Appeal dismissed the attempts of Farhash and two others to obtain an ad interim injunction against MalaysiaNow and its editor Abdar Rahman Koya in an ongoing defamation suit.

The application was filed before the plaintiffs’ substantive appeal hearing, where they had appealed against a Shah Alam High Court decision on Sept 4, which dismissed their injunction application against the same defendants.

Defamation suit

Farhash, together with Bumi Suria Sdn Bhd and Aminudin Mustapha, filed a defamation suit against MalaysiaNow and Rahman on July 10, seeking RM10 million in damages over articles they claimed tarnished their reputation in the corporate world.

In their affidavits, the plaintiffs said the news articles affected their careers and business ties by depicting them as having abused their positions to obtain a mining licence illegally.

Apart from financial damages, the plaintiffs are also seeking aggravated, exemplary, and punitive damages, as well as a court order for the defendants to publish a full, unconditional, and public apology on the portal.

They also want five percent interest per annum and for the articles to be removed from the news site.

Case background

On July 21, MalaysiaNow published documents allegedly proving that Farhash had received authorisation to prospect for minerals across a massive forest reserve in Sabah.

State-owned Sabah Mineral Management (SMM) Sdn Bhd and its CEO, Natasha Sim, who were implicated in the case, also took the matter to court, seeking gag orders against MalaysiaNow and Rahman, over articles on the Sabah mining scandal.

On Sept 9, the MACC cleared Farhash of alleged links to the Sabah mining scandal, after investigations revealed that no exploration licence was issued to a company owned by the businessperson.

Farhash’s name was also linked to a recent syringe attack on former economy minister Rafizi Ramli’s son at a mall in Putrajaya. He, however, denied any involvement in the case, calling the accusation “crazy”.

Amid an ongoing investigation, Rafizi said at a press conference in Parliament on Aug 14, that the attack could be linked to his recent meeting with a “group of whistleblowers” holding information on a scandal implicating a “certain individual”. He later identified that individual as Farhash.

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