KUALA LUMPUR, May 29 — The Court of Appeal has rejected Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s application to appear in court for today’s decision of a cross-appeal to strike out several matters in his defamation suit against former PKR man Datuk S. Nallakaruppan and Malay daily Utusan Malaysia.
The application was disallowed by Court of Appeal president Tan Sri Md Raus Sharif, who is not part of the presiding panel hearing this case, according to Anwar’s lawyer Latheefa Koya.
“Our reasons were clear, since our client is in prison, we can’t get any instructions from our client on the decision,” Latheefa told Malay Mail Online over phone.
“Our client had expressed his surprise and disappointment on this for being denied his right to appear in a case involving him,” she added in a separate text message.
All three parties were seeking to strike out matters in an ongoing RM60 million defamation case in the Kuala Lumpur High Court, last heard on May 15.
On August 25, 2008, Anwar sued Nallakaruppan over allegedly defamatory remarks in an article, “Anwar terima RM60 juta” (Anwar receives RM60 million) that were published in local papers Mingguan Malaysia and Sinar Harian.
In his witness statement that was tendered in court, Anwar claimed that Nallakaruppan had reportedly accused him of receiving RM60 million from Magnum Corporation Bhd, alleging that it painted him as an individual unfit to be a political leader and as having done something immoral.
He also claimed that the remarks had given Malaysians — especially Muslims — a bad perception towards him since gambling was forbidden in Islam.
He also claimed that Nallakaruppan quit PKR after failing to get his support to contest as a vice-president in the 2007 party elections and for the Ijok state seat the same year, accusing the latter of continuously attacking him and the party since then.
Since his imprisonment on February 10 for sodomising former aide Mohd Saiful Bukhari, Anwar has been allowed briefly out of prison for several court appearances — including in his defamation suit against Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Anifah Aman and his qazaf (false accusation of sodomy) suit against several others.
