A three-man bench chaired by Mohd Zawawi Salleh said the duo’s appeal was unsustainable and a trial should be held.

“The High Court judge was right in using his discretion not to strike out the suit,” he said.

The others members of the bench were Abdul Rahman Sebli and Prasad Sandosham Abraham .

Trial has been fixed for four days from May 8 next year.

Meanwhile, Senior Federal Counsel Alice Loke told reporters she had to obtain instruction from her superiors whether to file a leave application to appeal against today’s ruling.

The government has a month from today to file the leave application.

During submission, Alice told the bench that there was no reasonable cause of action for Nurul to file the suit.

“The words of respondents (Khalid and Sabri) are not defamatory,” she said, adding that Nurul did not dispute having been photographed with self-styled Sulu princess Jacel Kiram in Manila, Philippines, on Nov 9 last year.

She said Khalid was angered by Nurul’s meeting with Jacel whose father had ordered the intrusion in Sabah that led to the killing of security force members in 2013.

Alice said Khalid was entitled to the defence of qualified privilege and fair comment.

“The IGP did not defame the plaintiff (Nurul) as he was upset about the meeting with an enemy of the county,” she said.

To this, Zawawi said the late leader of Palestine Yaseer Arafat had met Israeli leaders and that could not be construed as meeting with enemies.

“In the present political environment no one is a permanent enemy,” he said.

Rahman then questioned whether the act of meeting was a serious offence.

Alice replied that Nurul did not offer an explanation about the meeting.

Zawawi said this itself was a reason the matter must go on trial.

Alice said Nurul filed the suit against Sabri just because the minister had claimed that she could be detained under a preventive law and charged with waging a war against the king.

“Her action is frivolous and vexatious,” Alice added.

Prasad said the minister had filed his defence while the plaintiff was claiming that it had been done with malicious intent.

“Don’t you think, it is better for this matter to go on trial for parties to ventilate their arguments?” he asked.

Rahman interjected and said the minister appeared to have made a reckless statement.

Nurul’s lawyer Sivarasa Rasiah said Khalid had exceeded his authority by making comments that were defamatory.

The lawyer, who was assisted by Shahid Adli Kamarudin, said Sabri’s statement likened his client to a terrorist.

On June 17, High Court judge John Louis O’Hara dismissed the duo’s application to strike out the lawsuit on the grounds that the suit had reasonable cause of action.

Nurul sued Khalid and Ismail for allegedly defaming her by claiming she had committed ‘treason’ by meeting Jacel Kiram. They allegedly also accused her of being a ‘traitor’.