Court refuses Zahid’s bid for injunction against Muhyiddin

In his statement of claim, Zahid said the alleged defamatory words uttered by Muhyiddin implied that he was not qualified to be the Umno president and Barisan Nasional (BN) chairman.

(FMT) – The High Court has dismissed Ahmad Zahid Hamidi’s attempt to obtain an interim injunction against Muhyiddin Yassin pending the outcome of his defamation suit.

Zahid’s lawyer, Baharudeen Mohamed Ariff, said judge Rozana Ali Yusoff ruled that the issues raised by the parties were matters that could be decided and disposed of during the trial.

Rozana also awarded RM5,000 in costs to Muhyiddin, who was represented by lawyers DP Naban, Rosli Dahlan, Amiratu Al Amirat, Chetan Jethwani and Ivy Shu during an online proceeding.

“The court fixed case management on Oct 3 for the parties to prepare for the trial,” said Baharudeen, who appeared with Shahrul Fazli Kamarulzaman and Aina Dalila Daman Huri.

Rosli said the judge dismissed the application as Zahid could not show that the allegations made against him by Muhyiddin were patently false.

Zahid, who is Umno president and Bagan Datuk MP, had filed the suit on April 4 after Muhyiddin went public to claim that he had asked him to intervene in his ongoing court cases.

Muhyiddin, who is the sole defendant, is alleged to have made the claim during the Johor election campaign.

Muhyiddin was the prime minister between March 2020 and August last year.

In his statement of claim, Zahid said the alleged defamatory words uttered by Muhyiddin implied that he was not qualified to be the Umno president and Barisan Nasional (BN) chairman.

He claimed the words meant that he was resorting to shortcuts to resolve his criminal cases for personal interest.

Zahid is standing trial on a total of 80 corruption charges here and in Shah Alam.

Last month, Rozana also refused Zahid’s bid to obtain a similar injunction against Dr Mahathir Mohamad pending the disposal of his lawsuit against the former prime minister.

Zahid had sued Mahathir in April for similarly claiming that he had sought the former prime minister’s help to get his corruption charges dropped.