[ad_1]
KUALA LUMPUR: The High Court today allowed a request by Penang Senior Vice Minister II P Ramasamy to amend his statement of defense in a lawsuit filed against him by preacher Dr. Zakir Naik.
Zakir, a permanent resident, filed the lawsuit in October last year claiming that Ramasamy had made defamatory statements against him and linked him to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) issue.
Judge Mohd Firuz Jaffril accepted Ramasamy’s request after Zakir’s lawyer, Akberdin Abdul Kader, informed the court that the plaintiff did not object.
“In handling the case prior to this, which was set on July 21, the defendant’s attorney had expressed the intention to amend the defense brief. We (the plaintiff) had studied the part to be amended and we agreed with it, ”he said.
The court set October 13 for another case management.
On October 16, 2019, Zakir sued Ramasamy for allegedly issuing defamatory statements, which were uploaded to social media sites and news portals between 2016 and 2019.
In the claim statement, he claimed that on April 10, 2016, Ramasamy had defamed him by calling him a “nasty name” on his (Ramasamy’s) Facebook page and that he had also issued another defamatory statement on October 1, 2017, which was published on the Free Malaysia Today (FMT) news portal.
Zakir also claimed that on August 11, 2019, the defendant had “manipulated” the former’s speech at an event organized by the Kelantan government and this was also posted on the FMT portal on the same day.
On August 20, 2019, it is alleged that Ramasamy made defamatory statements against the plaintiff and that they were published by India Today.
Zakir claimed that these statements had described him as a malicious individual and a threat to the peace and harmony of the country.
You are seeking a permanent injunction to prevent Ramasamy from publishing, distributing and uploading any defamatory statement against you in any medium, as well as general, compensatory, aggravated and exemplary damages, costs and any other relief that the court deems appropriate.
Zakir filed another lawsuit against Ramasamy in December 2019 for his comments posted by online news portal The Malaysian Insight regarding the LTTE issue.
The court had set five days from March 22 next year to hear both lawsuits, which will be heard together.
