Aug 11 hearing on Vivy Yusof's defamation suit against netizen

Lawyer Mohd Syakirin Syazwan, who represented Alia Najwa Hassannudin, the defendant in the suit, said the court had set Aug 11 and 12 for trial.

“A total of five witnesses, including my client, will testify at the trial while the plaintiff (Vivy) will produce three witnesses,” he said when contacted by Bernama after online case management before Judge Datin Rohani Ismail today which was also attended by lawyer Pauling Hee representing Vivy, or her real name Vivy Sofinas Yusof.

On June 15 last year, Vivy, 34, filed the suit through Messrs Foong Cheng Leong Co, naming Alia, 29, as the sole defendant.

Based on the statement of claim, Vivy said on March 28 last year, she had posted a a video on her Instagram account, of a conversation between four entrepreneurs regarding COVID-19 economic impact and the Economic Stimulus Package announced by Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin.

Vivy claimed that on March 30 of the same year, the defendant had posted several statements regarding the plaintiff on the defendant's Facebook and Instagram accounts and wrongly said that the plaintiff had questioned the government's action in helping the B40 and M40 groups, despite not contributing to the country's economy.

The businesswoman claimed that the defamatory words, among others, implied that the plaintiff did not sympathise with the B40 and M40 groups and was arrogant and selfish as well as being unprofessional, besides giving importance to profit alone.

Vivy said, the defamatory words also caused the launch of a petition on a website on April 1, to push for plaintiff's dismissal from Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) board of directors, for insulting the said groups, and the petition have since been signed by over 230,000 Internet users.

She claimed that on April 2, the suit was issued to the defendant and demanded her to stop publishing any defamatory statements against the plaintiff on the social media, and alleged that the defendant had replied the suit through Facebook, however the reply failed to comply to all the plaintiff's demands.

Therefore, the plaintiff is seeking general, aggravated and exemplary damages, and an injunction for the defendant to delete the defamatory words besides requesting her to issue a statement of apology to the plaintiff.

In a statement of defence, filed on Oct 20 last year, the defendant claimed that the statement she uploaded was based on actual facts from the plaintiff's own post and it was in the public interest. The defendant also denied any defamatory element in her statement.