Muhyiddin’s suit against Puad to be heard in 2023

KUALA LUMPUR: The High Court today set five days beginning Aug 14, 2023, for the hearing of Muhyiddin Yassin’s suit against Umno’s Puad Zarkashi over an allegedly defamatory statement made on the latter’s Facebook page regarding the quarantine order involving the former prime minister.

Puad’s counsel Shahrul Fazli Kamarulzaman, when contacted by Bernama, said the trial date for the suit was set by Judge Hayatul Akmal Abdul Aziz during case management held online yesterday.

“The court also set further case management on May 24, 2022, which will take place online,” he said, adding that Hayden Tan, representing Muhyiddin, and Mohamed Baharudeen Mohamed Ariff, acting on behalf of Puad, attended today’s proceedings.

Through a writ of summons filed in his personal capacity, Muhyiddin claimed that on Feb 8, Puad had published a post on Facebook under the name “Dr Puad Zarkashi” entitled “Kuarantin pun ada dua darjat? (Are there double standards even for quarantine?)”.

Muhyiddin claimed that the post, which was made while he was prime minister, was accessible to internet users around the world, and had received 1,200 reactions, 215 comments and 182 shares.

He claimed the post referred to him as “PM”, which was an acronym for prime minister, and contained untrue, inappropriate, baseless and malicious statements, which were slanderous against him.

Muhyiddin further claimed the statement implied that he and his entourage refused to undergo quarantine for 10 days after returning from an official visit to Jakarta, Indonesia. — Free Malaysia Today