PUTRAJAYA: Sungai Besar Umno division chief Datuk Seri Jamal Md Yunos has lost his appeal to set aside the court order requiring him to pay RM300,000 to former minister Teresa Kok for defamation.
Kok's counsel Datuk S. N. Nair in a statement said a three-member Court of Appeal bench led by Datuk Supang Lian today dismissed Jamal's appeal and awarded RM20,000 in cost to the respondent (Kok).
Other members of the bench were Datuk Azman Abdullah and Datuk Wong Kian Kheong.
"We also managed to move the court for a consequential order that the money held by stakeholders be released to the respondent immediately," he said.
Jamal was represented by Rejinder Singh while counsels Jaden Phoon Wai Ken and Rebecca Marshall appeared for the respondent.
On March 29, last year, the appellate court granted Jamal a conditional stay of an order requiring that he pay RM300,000 in damages to Kok.
However, the judges ordered Jamal to deposit the RM300,000 judgment sum into Kok's solicitors' account.
On July 26, 2022, High Court judge Datuk Mohd Arief Emran Arifin, who was a judicial commissioner at the time, granted Kok a general aggravated and exemplary sum of RM300,000, and RM50,000 in costs with five per cent interest after winning a defamation suit filed against Jamal.
In his judgment, Mohd Arief said the court had taken into account the arguments of both parties, and that Jamal, who represented himself in the suit, had failed to defend himself.
The former primary industries minister filed the suit on April 6, 2017, over Jamal's alleged defamatory statement pertaining to the misuse of Yayasan Warisan Anak Selangor (Yawas) funds during a press conference on March 8, 2017.
In her statement of claim, Kok said that Jamal had alleged at the press conference that she had embezzled money from the Selangor state fund.
Videos of the press conference were then published on Jamal's Facebook and YouTube pages, which had garnered 2,800 and 1,800 views, respectively.
Kok, who is also Seputeh MP, claimed that the defamatory statement, among others, gave the impression that she had misused state government funds for her own use and was an unethical person.
She had sought RM1 million in general damages, along with compensatory, aggravated and exemplary damages, and an injunction to prevent Jamal from repeating or spreading the allegations.