PUTRAJAYA (July 23): Pakatan Rakyat blogger Amizudin Ahmat lost his appeal today against the High Court’s conviction and a three-month jail sentence for contempt of court after continuing to publish defamatory articles on Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim.

A three-member Court of Appeal panel led by Justice Datuk Zaharah Ibrahim unanimously agreed that no error was found in the High Court’s decision in sentencing the blogger for contempt.

Zaharah also said the order compelling the blogger to three months jail was not “excessive” and dismissed the appeal with no order to cost.

She accepted the appellant’s application for a stay of execution pending an application is filed at the Federal court.

However, if Amizudin fails to file his application within two weeks from today then he must produce himself to court to serve his sentence.

The former Information, Communications and Culture Minister had filed the suit on Jan 31, 2011 against the 42-year-old PKR Youth committee member for publishing an allegedly defamatory article in his blog sharpshooterblogger.blogspot.com in December 2010.

The High Court, on July 19, 2011, ordered Azimudin to pay RM300,000 in damages and RM100,000 in costs to the former minister.

Amizudin appealed against the award and lost but the Court of Appeal did reduce the costs from RM100,000 to 50,000.

On Aug 10 last year, the High Court sentenced Amizudin to three months’ jail after finding him guilty of contempt of court by further publishing 11 articles that defamed Rais.

Amizudin was represented by R.Sivarasa and Datuk Seri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah for the former minister.