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PUTRAJAYA (July 14): The Federal Court has unanimously dismissed former inspector general of police (IGP) Tan Sri Musa Hassan’s bid to appeal the libel suit brought against him by Federal Territories Minister Hannah Yeoh over comments he had made alleging that she had tried to turn Malaysia into a “Christian nation”.
A three-member apex court panel, led by Datuk Rhodzariah Bujang, along with Datuk Che Mohd Ruzima Ghazali and Datuk Azmi Ariffin, dismissed Musa’s leave (permission) application as it failed to meet the high threshold required, were fact sensitive, and were not of public importance.
The panel ordered a cost of RM50,000.
For civil cases such as this, applicants must first obtain leave (permission) before the actual appeal is heard. Leave is granted to cases which, among others, contain novel questions of law and are of public significance. The court will usually not hear cases on settled and trite law.
Musa was seeking permission to move forward with his appeal against the Court of Appeal’s (COA) decision in January this year, which had allowed Yeoh’s appeal and ordered Musa to pay Yeoh RM250,000 in global damages.
In overturning the High Court’s December 2024 decision, the COA bench, led by apex court judge Datuk Azimah Omar, said that they disagreed with all the grounds given by then-judicial commissioner Arziah Mohamed Apandi (now a High Court judge) in her judgement.
Yeoh had filed the suit in 2020 against Musa over his comments that she had written her book “Becoming Hannah: A Personal Journey” to turn Malaysia into a “negara Kristian” (Christian nation), had links with evangelists and Jews to damage Islam and Malaysia, and put her personal interests above the nation’s.
The comments were made at a forum in Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) on Jan 30, 2020.
On Tuesday, Yeoh was represented by lawyers Razlan Hadri Zulkifli, Sangeet Kaur Deo, and Lim Wei Jiet, while Awang Armadajaya Awang Mahmud appeared for Musa.