Thursday August 14, 2008

Raja Petra given three days to prove claims in articles against Shafee

By CECIL FUNG

KUALA LUMPUR: A High Court here has ordered Malaysia Today editor Raja Petra Kamarudin to reveal the source for the allegations he made against prominent lawyer Datuk Muhammad Shafee Abdullah in three online articles.

In addition, the wide-ranging order compels the blogger to, within three days of its service on him, reveal the identities of visitors to his web portal who left comments and messages following the publishing of the articles.

In the three articles dated Aug 6, Aug 7 and Aug 11, Raja Petra had accused Shafee of masterminding the recent sodomy charge against PKR adviser Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.

The order, granted by Justice Tee Ah Sing in chambers, also included several injunctions, the first of which directs Raja Petra to remove the defamatory articles from the web portal within two days as well as other follow-up articles and comments posted by visitors.

Malaysia Today editor Raja Petra Kamarudin

Injunctions were also granted to restrain the blogger or his agents from further publishing the said articles or any other articles, journals, letters, comments, posts and statements that are defamatory of Shafee on the web portal or any third-party websites.

The order was the result of an ex parte summons in chambers, which the lawyer filed yesterday together with a defamation suit against the blogger over the same articles.

The court fixed Sept 2 to hear the inter partes application.

When contacted, Shafee said the order granted by the High Court was against “a blog owner who continuously, maliciously and contumeliously went on a rampage to defame me.”

“I have not seen anything more defamatory than what this man has written. None of what he said is true,” he said.

Shafee also challenged Raja Petra to enter appearance in this case to answer the suit and dared him to prove the truth of the contents of all three articles.

As at press time, the three articles were still available on the Malaysia Today portal.