Calling it “foolhardy”, Azhar, who is popularly known as Art Harun, added that Clare’s 55-page statement of defence and counterclaim was excellent.

“I must take my hat off to her UK solicitors. The defence is so detailed and good. Frankly, I don’t think I could plead like that,” he said in a Facebook post today.

Hadi, who is suing Clare for defamation, filed his suit at the London High Court in April following an article she had written on Aug 6 last year.

The Sarawak Report had ran an eight-paragraph article titled “As Najib Denies All Over 1MDB, Let’s Not Forget His Many Other Criminal Connections”.

In it, the portal claimed RM90 million was “reckoned” to have entered the accounts of top PAS leaders to woo them into supporting Umno and Barisan Nasional.

Clare, in her defence to Hadi’s suit, said the PAS leader was not named or identified in any statement in the article.

In her counterclaim, she said Hadi wanted to discredit her and the whistleblower website in its “justified campaign” that Prime Minister Najib Razak be removed from office and brought to justice for his alleged corrupt and criminal conduct.

Azhar said in her defence, Clare had pleaded “public interest”, under which she had outlined at least 103 sub-paragraphs of why the matter should be considered as such.

Some of the sub-paragraphs even contained further sub-sub paragraphs, he added.

“All these allude to various matters touching upon a topic that is not even discussed in our Parliament, including, in particular, the DoJ investigation findings,” he said, referring to the US Department of Justice.

“The trial of this case will be very, very interesting. All those issues that have been blanked out in Malaysia will be laid bare in the UK courts, unless, of course, all those paragraphs are for some reason or other struck out prior to the trial by the UK courts.

“I don’t think the defence will be happy news for all the parties involved in the suit, including those who are named in it,” he said.