KUALA LUMPUR (Sept 22):  The lawyer for Sultanah Nur Zahirah of Terengganu has contended that the High Court judge who dismissed her defamation suit against Clare Rewcastle-Brown and two others last year had erred by making an “over-elaborate” analysis of the alleged defamatory statement made by the Sarawak Report editor.

The judge had relied heavily on the dictionary meaning of the words instead of adopting a casual interpretation, counsel A Vishnu Kumar submitted in the Court of Appeal on Friday.

“Over-elaboration of these words is unnecessary as it should be interpreted casually as a reasonable ordinary reader would understand the impugned statement,” he said in his oral submission in the sultanah’s appeal against the High Court decision in the case relating to a  statement in Rewcastle-Brown's book titled The Sarawak Report: The Inside Story of the 1MDB Exposé.

Vishnu said it would be unrealistic to conclude that ordinary and reasonable readers of the book would pause and reflect on the precise dictionary definition of each and every word used in the impugned statement.

The impugned statement reads: “Jho (fugitive businessman Low Taek Jho or Jho Low) was also friendly with a key player in Terengganu, the wife of the Sultan, whose acquiescence was needed to set up the fund and he later cited her support as having been crucial to his obtaining the advisory position."

In the suit, the sultanah sought, among others, general damages of RM100 million from each of the defendants.

The sultanah alleged that Rewcastle-Brown had made a disparaging statement about her in the book, and that the statement could be taken to mean that she was involved in corrupt practices and interfered with the state’s administration.

She also claimed that the statement linked her as being “friendly” with Jho Low, and that the statement construed her as having helped Jho Low become the adviser to Terengganu Investment Authority, the predecessor of 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB).

During the hearing of the suit in August, Rewcastle-Brown testified that she made an “honest mistake” by naming Sultanah Nur Zahirah in the impugned passage, as she had mistaken the sultanah for her sister-in-law, Tunku Datuk Rahimah Sultan Mahmud.

The journalist said that she had made corrections to the passage in the book’s subsequent print runs.

On Oct 31 last year,  Judicial Commissioner Dr Johan Lee Kien How @ Mohd Johan Lee dismissed the suit, saying that although there was a case of mistaken identity — where Rewcastle-Brown mistook Sultanah Nur Zahirah for Tunku Rahimah — the statement in question was not defamatory.

Rewcastle-Brown’s lawyer, Americk Singh Sidhu, had submitted in the appellate court earlier that no negative connotation can possibly be derived from the statement and that the statement in no way degraded the sultanah’s reputation.

The Court of Appeal bench is led by Datuk Hadhariah Syed Ismail and also comprises Mohamed Zaini Mazlan and Datuk Azhahari Kamal Ramli.

After hearing the submissions, the court set Dec 12 to deliver its decision on the appeal.