Najib, Rosmah sue Nga Kor Ming over Facebook post

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak and his wife, Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor, today sued Taiping parliamentarian, Nga Kor Ming over an allegedly defamatory material posted by Nga on his Facebook page last March.

Acting in his personal capacity, Najib and Rosmah filed the suit through Messrs Hafarizam Wan & Aisha Mubarak at the High Court Registrar's Office here on June 11.

The copy of the writ of summons was made available to the media today and the case management was set on July 10 before Deputy Registrar Anisah Normah Muhammad Nor.

In their statement of claims, Najib and Rosmah claimed that Nga, as the defendant, had posted a status update with a picture of the plaintiffs with several Cabinet ministers and top Wisma Putra officers in a hotel room in China, on his Facebook page on March 29.

Both plaintiffs claimed that the lawmaker had also published defamatory words against them on the Facebook page, which could be accessed by any Internet users across the world.

Najib claimed that the words implied that he had misused the power and the mandate given to him as Prime Minister for personal interest or the interest of his wife by allowing Rosmah to intervene in the government's affairs.

Rosmah, on the other hand, claimed that the words implied that she was selfish for dominating her husband, the prime minister, besides having personal interests in the national administration system.

Both plaintiff claimed that the defendant did not make any move to contact them for approval before publishing the post.

They said a notice of claim dated April 10 was sent to Nga, which among others, demanded that Nga apologise and retract the status update containing the defamatory words, but Nga, in a reply dated April 24, denied having defamed the two plaintiffs.

Both plaintiffs also said although the defendant had removed the picture from the Facebook page, it was still accessible on two blogs, which had page views of 25,360,055 and 6,626,986 respectively, as at the date the writ of summons was filed.

Najib and Rosmah seek general damages, aggravated damages, exemplary damages, interests, costs and other relief deemed fit by the court.

They also seek an injunction to restrain the defendant or his assistant or agent from republishing the defamatory words, besides a written apology from the defendant to be published in the newspapers and magazines.