The campaign to curb outdated defamation laws is well underway in most democracies where libel actions are recognised as a weapon for the already rich and powerful to intimidate anyone who exercises their freedom of speech in a way they do not like.

In Malaysia the balance is all the more unequal given the continued use of criminal defamation (abolished elsewhere) and demands for deference.

When the Sultanah of Terengganu first came after the editor of this site, and also the printer and the distributer of her book in Malaysia, for mistaking her for her sister in law, as the person whom the 1MDB fraudster Jho Low had identified as having introduced him to the chairman of the Terengganu Investment Authority (the Sultan himself), she demanded RM100,000,000 to be paid by each.

If she did not receive the RM300,000,000 within 8 days together with fulsome apologies, her lawyers threatened, then she would drag all three into court, as is still permitted under Malaysia’s outdated laws.

Unsurprisingly, the cash was not forthcoming. However, the writer did immediately acknowledge that it was instead the sister of the Sultan whom Jho Low had cited as having introduced him to the Sultan (at the time the Agong), something that has never been denied.

The sister is a qualified businesswoman who was on the board of one of Jho Low’s companies and also the TIA itself. Jho Low was clearly proud to tell The Star newspaper in an interview that this valued connection had smoothed the path to his appointment as an advisor to the TIA.

Q: How did you get to know the Yang di-Pertuan Agong?

A: His Majesty’s sister Tunku Datuk Rahimah introduced us. She is the chairman of Loh & Loh Corporation Bhd, whom I met as a fellow shareholder of Abu Dhabi-Kuwait-Malaysia Investment Corporation (ADKMIC).  [https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2010/07/30/low-dispels-talk-he-received-rm500mil-airbase-job]

The author apologised for the misidentification, issued erratum slips for the existing copies of the book and immediately corrected the word ‘wife’ to ‘sister’ on page 3 in the next imprint of her 500 page record of the 1MDB scandal The Sarawak Report.

What the author was not prepared to do was to accept that the error was defamatory of the Sultanah or suggested any of the meanings that her lawyers sought to ascribe, namely that:

After all, to have done so would have been to besmirch the sister of the Sultan of Terengganu who has never denied that she did perform the introduction, as claimed by Jho Low and who was herself on the board of the Terengganu fund chaired by her brother the Sultan.

Indeed, it is an unfortunate aspect of libel cases that they tend to draw attention often in an unfortunate way to matters better left unexaggerated to be forgotten.

Such common sense judgement acts as one of the few restrictions in place to deter the super wealthy and super influential from conducting unrestrained libel actions against folk who do not have the matching finances to defend themselves, let alone pay up huge sums that are fashionably demanded for them to drop such cases.

The original High Court judge accepted that there was no shame to be accorded for having recommended Jho Low as an advisor in 2008 to the TIA.  He had seemed a respectable figure at the time.

Sarawak Report had related it as a documented and historical explanation for how this Penang businessman had originally managed to obtain a position within the fund, which he managed to keep and develop after it transitioned away from having anything to do with Terengganu and came directly under the control of the Ministry of Finance controlled by the prime minister, Najib Razak.

The author did not mention the royal introducer by name or refer to her again at any other point in the 500 page book.

However, an appeal was demanded and a meanwhile a parallel criminal defamation prosecution re-opened (four years after it was initially shelved).

The Malaysian Appeal Court judges eventually ruled the High Court judge had erred in not being more avid for scandalous connotations when he read the sentence and himself found it to be innocuous.

It was judged that he ought to have realised that readers ten years after the events related in the book would by then have developed a bad impression of Jho Low.

Therefore, mentioning how he had been introduced might reflect badly on the person who did so – if not in the mind of the judge then at least in the minds of those ready to let their thoughts wander in the direction complained of by the Sultanah’s lawyers.

Sarawak Report’s refusal to apologise enough in recognition of this unwanted interpretation was described as a further factor.

The Federal Court has refused to take the case further, leaving the freedom of writers severely impaired in Malaysia compared to other countries where the courts have a far stricter limitation on what can be considered defamatory and leave that interpretation to the judge. [see Koutsogiannis v The Random House Group Ltd [2019]

Sarawak Report, the distributor Gerakbudaya and printer Vinlin are therefore now facing a ruling to pay the Sultanah RM300,000 in damages plus a total of RM155,400 in related costs.

Granted, this is a thousand times less than what the plaintiff was demanding in order to drop the case in the first place.  However, as with so many defamation cases, it is a punishing sum for those who dared open their mouths and report on Malaysia’s largest corruption scandal, namely 1MDB.

Thanks to Engage, The Centre for Independent Journalism and other civil society supporters in Malaysia, and also to friends in the UK, the three defendants have managed to raise all but RM150,000 from generous donations by the public towards these legal costs.

If we join forces to raise the rest it will help two small businesses which have stood up for a free media in Malaysia to survive another day and it will help Sarawak Report to continue to inform Malaysians about issues such as 1MDB and the many other concerns raised on this site.

Please find their campaign on: https://www.facebook.com/engage.my

Or seek out SR’s Go Fund Me page in the UK: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-us-survive-royal-damages-award