Court to decide Khairy's application to amend statement of defence on July 9

The High Court here today set July 9 to decide Youth and Sports Minister Khairy Jamaluddin's application to amend and insert Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim's conviction in the Sodomy II case in his statement of defence against the RM100 million lawsuit filed by Anwar against him.

Judicial Commissioner S. Nantha Balan set the date after the case was mentioned before him in chambers in the presence of lawyer Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, who represented Khairy, and lawyer J. Leela who represented Anwar.

Speaking to reporters later, Muhammad Shafee said Khairy filed an application to amend his statement of defence to insert Anwar's conviction for sodomising his former aide Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan as decided by the Federal Court on Feb 10.

On March 7, 2008, Anwar filed the RM100 million lawsuit against Khairy, claiming that Khairy, who was then Umno Youth vice-chief, had uttered defamatory words against Anwar in a video clip titled 'Anwar and kin no threat' which was uploaded into several websites, including the Malaysiakini.com portal.

Anwar claimed that the video clip contained part of the defamatory words uttered by Khairy during a 'ceramah' or political talk in Lembah Pantai on or around Feb 20, 2008.