Perlis Mufti Asri Zainul Abidin awarded RM250,000 in defamation lawsuit

The Kuala Lumpur High Court upheld part of a defamation claim filed by Perlis mufti Dr. Asri Zainul Abidin against Facebook user Nawawi Abdul Razak. The court found the first of four statements linking the mufti to the GISBH movement defamatory, ordering the defendant to pay RM250,000 in damages and RM50,000 in costs. Nawawi was also instructed to publish an apology, remove the offending posts and refrain from further defamatory publications.

The suit, lodged in October 2024, asserted that the posts implied the mufti was a leader or supporter of GISBH Holdings Sdn Bhd and benefitted from superstitious practices. The court rejected the remaining three statements as not meeting the legal elements of defamation.