PUTRAJAYA (July 16): The Court of Appeal has upheld a High Court decision which dismissed a defamation suit filed by the former chief executive officer of a local telecommunications company and singer Jason Jonathan Lo, against the Malaysian National News Agency (Bernama) over two articles published in 2019 and 2020.

The three-judge bench led by Datuk Seri Mariana Yahya dismissed Lo’s appeal, and held that the High Court had not erred in dismissing the defamation suit.

Lo filed the lawsuit in July 2021 in relation to two articles published by Bernama, titled "Former telco CEO charged with trespassing, injecting drug into body”, and "Court charges singer Jason Lo & colleague with CBT of RM200,000”.

Mariana said that the bench agreed with the High Court judge’s decision in which he said that the whole articles must be read to understand that there was no defamation.

“We disagree with the position that the words were defamatory, and [the articles] should be read in entirety,” she said.

She said that Lo’s party cannot pick and choose only parts of the publication that were defamatory.

It was Lo’s contention that the words that were defamatory should be read in isolation rather than in entirety.

“In totality, we find the words complained of by the appellant (Lo) were not defamatory in the two articles,” said Mariana, who was flanked by Justices Datuk Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali and Datuk Azman Abdullah.

The panel then ordered Lo to pay Bernama RM13,000 in costs.

During his brief submission to the bench before the decision, Lo’s lawyer Choo Dee Wei had submitted that the words, when read in isolation or in their context, were defamatory.

However, Bernama’s lawyer Adam Luqman Amdan disagreed, and said that the words must be read in entirety in order to determine whether they were defamatory or not, as laid down by the Federal Court.

He also said that Lo failed to give any evidence that the publication of the two articles was meant to mislead readers and the public for the purpose of sensationalism or to gain profit.

Adam added that the articles merely contained charges against Lo, and when read in entirety, were only designed to inform the public that Lo was charged in court for several offences.

The articles also clearly stated that Lo had pleaded not guilty to the charges, and contained several words such as "allegedly", "charged", facts that Lo was released on bail, and that the court had fixed other mention dates.

The High Court decision was given by Judicial Commissioner Datuk Raja Ahmad Mohzanuddin Shah Raja Mohzan in May last year.

The court made the ruling after hearing evidence from Lo as a plaintiff and three witnesses from the defendant.