KUALA LUMPUR – The Court of Appeal has ordered DAP chairman Lim Guan Eng to pay RM250,000 in damages to former Baling MP Datuk Seri Azeez Abdul Rahim over a defamation suit filed in 2018.
In a unanimous decision, the three-member appellate court panel chaired by judge Datuk Azizah Nawawi also ordered Lim, who is Bagan MP, to pay costs of RM70,000 to the Umno veteran, reported The Edge.
In reading out the judgement by the bench, which included Datuk Seri Mariana Yahya and Datuk Azimah Omar, justice Azizah said that Lim was not entitled to rely on the defence of justification, fair comment, or even qualified privilege.
She also said that the timing of Lim’s statement was “too conveniently close” to the 2018 general elections, signifying that the statements were made not to safeguard the public interest but rather for his own political benefit.
The panel also noted that Lim made his statements hurriedly without giving “reasonable” time for the alleged scandal to be investigated, following a police report filed by Azeez after he received a notice of demand (NOD) from Consortium Zenith Construction Sdn Bhd (CZCSB), which was later retracted.
The company is the developer of the RM6.34 billion Penang undersea tunnel project.
The judgement also mentioned that Lim is not a “common layperson”, as he is instead a “renowned and seasoned veteran” politician who is not a stranger to the litigation process and should have understood that a mere NOD is not “evidence of guilt”.
The panel also pointed out that, throughout the trial, Lim made no attempts to verify the contents of the NOD.
Azeez was represented by counsels Porres Royan and Craig Ho, while lawyers Datuk N. Mureli and Felix Lim appeared for the former finance minister.
Azeez was appealing a ruling delivered by the Penang High Court on December 11, 2020, which had dismissed his defamation suit against Lim, the former Penang chief minister, over comments the latter made regarding the Penang undersea tunnel project.
In the suit filed by Azeez in March 2018, he claimed that Lim had issued statements in February of the same year linking him to a payment of RM3 million in consultation fees by CZCSB. – August 21, 2023