KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 28 — The High Court today seized 14 household items from Umno leader Datuk Seri Jamal Md Yunos’s house, with the items expected to be auctioned off to cover an outstanding amount of more than RM66,000 in unpaid legal costs.

The lawyer for DAP’s Seputeh MP Teresa Kok, Datuk Sankara Nair, said the seizure was carried out earlier today to recover RM66,061.85 in legal costs that the High Court had ordered Jamal to pay.

Previously, Kok won her defamation suit against Jamal in 2022.

Jamal had already paid the RM300,000 court-ordered compensation or damages for defaming her, but had yet to settle the legal costs in that case.

Sankara said the High Court in Kuala Lumpur had on January 23 issued a court order known as a writ of seizure and sale, which authorises a court bailiff to enter a property by force according to the law if access is not granted.

Sankara said the High Court’s assistant registrar Qasiratul Jannah Usmani Othman and the bailiff Mohammad Nazmi Rahmat arrived at around 11.42am, together with Kok’s lawyer Maniggandan Gopalan and police officers, at Jamal’s house in Ampang, Selangor.

He said the court assistant registrar and bailiff called out and rang the doorbell at the house, but there was no response, and the assistant registrar then gave instructions for forced entry to seize the items in the house.

“The writ of seizure was duly executed, and a total of 14 items were seized from the premises. The execution of the writ of seizure was completed at approximately 12.36pm, and the seized items are currently pending disposal by way of auction,” he said in a brief statement to the media today.

Sankara declined to provide details at this stage on the items seized, as the recovery of the unpaid legal costs remains an ongoing process.

In 2017, Kok filed the defamation lawsuit against Jamal over the latter’s accusations that she had allegedly misappropriated Yayasan Warisan Anak Selangor (Yawas) funds under the Skim Mesra Usia Emas initiative.

The High Court ruled in 2022 that Jamal had defamed Kok and ordered him to pay RM300,000 in compensation and RM50,000 in legal costs to her, while the Court of Appeal upheld the High Court’s decision in March 2024.

On July 30, 2024, the Federal Court rejected Jamal’s application for leave to appeal the Court of Appeal’s decision, which meant that the RM300,000 he had deposited for the case was released to Kok.