Perkasa’s Ibrahim Ali gets one-day jail, RM20,000 fine for contempt of court

(The Star) – Perkasa boss Ibrahim Ali (pic) was sentenced to one-day jail and RM20,000 fine for contempt of court against a judge hearing the Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s defamation case against Utusan Melayu.

High Court judge John Louis O’Hara gave his judgement after hearing nearly two hours of submissions by counsels.

Anwar was granted leave on March 5 to cite Ibrahim and writer Zainuddin Salleh for contempt for scandalising the trial judge in his defamation case.

However, Ibrahim claimed that neither he nor Perkasa was responsible for posting a defamatory article on a website on Jan 7.

Anwar’s lawyer, R. Sivarasa submitted to the court on Tuesday that the article had make scurrilous and personal attacks on a High Court judge whilst a decision was pending to be delivered by the trial judge in a RM50mil defamation case filed by Anwar against Utusan Melayu (M) Bhd.

On Jan 21, Anwar won his defamation suit against Utusan Melayu over publication of two articles on his comments to BBC during an interview on homosexuality laws.

Justice V. T. Singham had ordered Utusan Melayu to pay RM45,000 in costs to Anwar.