Najib's application in suit against Tony Pua to be heard on November 2

High Court judge Vazeer Alam Mydin Meera set the date in chambers today.

Counsel Alliff Benjamin Suhaimi, representing Pua, told reporters here that on the same date, the court would also hear Pua's application to strike out Najib's suit against him.

He said judge Vazeer also set Dec 1 to hear Najib's application to expunge certain parts of the statement of defence filed by Chan Chee Kong, the owner of Mediarakyat.net portal. The prime minister, in his personal capacity, had filed the defamation suit on March 5 this year, naming Pua, 42, and Chan, 51, as the first and second defendants respectively.

In his statement of claim, Najib said that on Nov 13 last year, Pua as the main speaker at a DAP fundraising dinner, had made a defamatory remark on 1MDB. He said a recording of the speech was uploaded by Chan himself and/or his agents on YouTube and the Mediarakyat website under what he claimed was a libellous heading.

Najib said the recording of the speech contained words that referred to and related to him and defamed him, and the individual known as the "prime minister" must have referred specifically to him.

Najib claimed that the defamatory words, meant, among other things, that he had robbed the people of their money with regard to IMDB transactions and as such, he was someone who could not be trusted and not qualified to hold public office.

He said the publication of the defamatory words had damaged his reputaion as the recorded speech could be accessed widely and easily throughout the world via the Internet, blogs, forums and websites without any restriction, and could be shared.