Court grants Najib interim injunction against Pua

KUALA LUMPUR: The High Court today granted an interim injunction to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Abdul Razak against DAP's Tony Pua, to prevent the latter from repeating slanderous allegations.
"With this the prime minister is protected from being further defamed or further accused," his lawyer Mohd Hafarizam Harun told reporters outside the courtroom today.
"The court has allowed our interim injunction application. The defendant (Tony Pua) is stopped from further publishing the video which is the subject matter of the trial," Hafarizam explained.
He added that the court has fixed Sept 13 for case management for both parties to identify agreed facts and non-agreed facts.
"So with this Tony Pua has been stopped from making further statements in relation to the video. He has removed the video and can't republish it. Words from the video is not to be republished as well," he said.
The interim injunction will stay in place until the case is over, however dates for the trial have not been fixed.
On April 21, Najib filed the suit in his personal capacity against Pua over the slanderous allegations he had made in a live video on Facebook on the tabling of a Private Member's Bill to amend the Syariah Courts (Criminal Jurisdiction) Act 1965 or RUU355.
Najib claims that the words used in Pua's live video posting on Facebook implied that he had abused his powers as prime minister by directing the cabinet, through the Dewan Rakyat speaker, to allow the tabling of amendments to the Syariah Court (Criminal Jurisdiction) Act 1965 (Act 355) by PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang to divert attention on 1MDB.
In his statement of claim, Najib, as the plaintiff, accused Pua of making the statement at the lobby of Parliament on April 6, and which was recorded and uploaded by the defendant or his agents on his (Pua's) official Facebook page.