Ruling Feb 29 on Harris’ suit against Yong

Cynthia D Baga

KOTA KINABALU: The High Court will on Feb 29 next year deliver its ruling on a suit filed by former Chief MinisterTan Sri Harris Mohd Salleh against Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP) and its President Datuk Yong Teck Lee for insinuating that he was involved in causing the Double Six tragedy that killed Tun Fuad Stephens and all those on board the Nomad aircraft on June 6, 1976.

High Court Judge Dato' Abdul Rahman Sebli set the date after the defendants closed their case after the last witness Yong, 59, who is also former Chief Minister, finished testify ing on Friday.

The court also ordered the defendants to file their written submissions by Jan 20, 2012 and the plalntiffs to file their written reply by Feb 10,2012.

The hearing, which began on Nov 16 this year, saw Harris as the sole plaintiff witness, while the defence called seven witnesses during the trial.

Harris, who is a plaintiff, filed the writ of summons on July 19, 2010 claiming general damages, aggravated and exemplary damages of not less than RM50 million from Yong, who he named as first defendant and SAPP as second defendant, for libel.

"He is also seeking an injunction to restrain the defendants whether by themselves or their servants or employees or agents from printing and publishing further the statements and similar libel in any form or means.

Harris is represented by counsel Yunof Maringking and Trevor Kenneth Maringking, while Yong and SAPP were represented by counsel Datuk Simon Shim and Flora Dius.

Shim had earlier informed the court that there was no need to call Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah as the defendants' witness as the defendants have their points and established their case in this hearing.

Earlier, during re-examination-in-chief by Shim, Yong said his statement, which was published on April 5,2010, did not refer to the plaintiff in any way and if he had wanted to accuse the plaintiff of anything he would have done so but that was not his intention and also there was nothing to that effect in the statement.

Yong also said he disagreed with the plaintiff that his suggesting that the re-investigation of the air crash could possibly reveal sabotage because it clearly stated that maybe nothing new would come out from the re-investigation.

"The same remark that nothing new would come out from the re-investigation is also contained in my press statement published on April 9, 2010. Therefore, the plaintiff contention that the re-investigation could possibly reveal sabotage is only his imagination," he said after Shim asked him to explain why he disagreed with the plaintiff during cross-examination on Thursday.

To another question during the re-examination-in-chief, Yong said he did not agree with the plaintiffs contention that the plaintiff was the target of the call for re-investigation of the air crash because his call for re-investigation was to re-investigate the plane crash and he does not refer to the plaintiff in the statements and a call for re-investigation was simply a call for re-investigation of the plane crash.

Yong explained that why he does not see fit to seek clarification from Tengku Razaleigh and another version from the plaintiff, because the version of events by Tengku Razaleigh vary from the version by the plaintiff.

"And therefore I felt that this was for the tribunal to re-investigate the plane crash to establish which of the two was the correct version and if the two versions can be reconciled or not. It is because of the two varying versions that I have repeated the call for re-investigation in older to get the truth," he said.

Meanwhile, during the continuation of cross-examination by Trevor in the Thursday evening session, Yong did not agree with Trevor that the defendants were not serious when calling for a re-investigation of the air crash since neither an official request to the authorities nor affirmative action had been done by the defendants on its call for re-investigation.

Yong agreed withTrevor that before he (Yong) made a press statement on April 4 last year and published on the next day, he had not at any time checked personally with Tengku Razaleigh whether his account of the event prior to the air crash was true and accurate.

Daily Express

Saturday December 24, 2011

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