Datuk Ibrahim Ali
KUALA LUMPUR: Perkasa president Datuk Ibrahim Ali was sentenced to one day’s jail and imposed a RM20,000 fine or another two weeks’ imprisonment by the High Court here yesterday for contempt of court.
Justice Datuk John Louis O’Hara ordered the jail term to run from today and rejected a request by Ibrahim’s counsel Rajindar Singh to stay the sentence.
Ibrahim’s other lawyer Adnan Seman said they would settle the fine and file a notice of appeal tomorrow against the ruling.
The Perkasa president was found guilty of allowing the publication of an article in his organisation’s website, which belittled a judge hearing Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim defamation suit against Utusan Melayu (Malaysia) Bhd.
The writer of the article, Zainuddin Salleh was sentenced by O’Hara to four weeks’ jail. The court rejected counsel Mohamed Harmy’s oral request for a stay of the sentence, to run from today and ordered him to file a written application.
In his judgement, O’Hara said the article had ridiculed the court generally and Datuk VT Singham personally.
“The publication is an attack on Singham’s integrity and impartiality. The publication was subjudice, as hearing of the case has not ended,” he held.
Earlier, Mohamed Harmy mitigated for a lenient punishment telling the court that Zainuddin was suffering from heart disease and had to seek treatment monthly at the hospital, and did not have a steady income.
Ibrahim said he was unaware of the article that was posted in Perkasa’s website: “As a Muslim, I swear that I had nothing to do with the article written by Zainuddin,” he said.
Last March 5, O’Hara granted Anwar’s application which alleged that the article posted in Perkasa’s website on Jan 7 had tarnished the image of the judge who was hearing his defamation suit against Utusan Melayu and the paper’s editor in chief Datuk Abdul Aziz Ishak, to commence committal proceedings against Ibrahim and Zainuddin.
Anwar’s defamation suit pertained to two articles published in Utusan Melayu on his interview by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).
On Jan 21, the high court ruled that the two articles published by Utusan Melayu in regard to homosexual laws were defamatory.
Meanwhile, Ibrahim when met by reporters at the Jalan Duta Court Complex cafe, said he accepted yesterday’s decision wholeheartedly and did not dispute it.
He was detained in the court’s lockup for a few hours and later released after paying the fine. — Bernama