Plaintiff Ismail Sabri Yaakob and defendants James Sarda and Sabah Publishing Sdn Bhd resolved the matter amicablly during a case management today.

Lawyers representing their clients, however, declined to disclose the terms of settlement recorded before judicial commissioner Darryl Goon Siew Chye in chambers.

FMT understands that the publisher has undertaken to carry an apology in the Daily Express within 30 days.

Ismail, who was not in court, was represented by Samsinaralia Sahar while Bhag Singh appeared for the defendants.

The former rural and regional development minister filed a RM10 million suit over three articles alleging that turtle eggs were served at an event he attended in Sabah.

Ismail filed the suit on March 30 last year at the Kuala Lumpur High Court claiming that the defendants had wrongfully and maliciously published the articles in the Daily Express on protected turtle eggs served at a dinner in Kota Kinabalu which he attended in 2015.

In his statement of claim, Ismail stated that the defamatory words against him in the articles, titled “Minister and Sabah YB have yet to comply: Dept” dated Jan 24, 2016; “Beluran turtle eggs dinner: Findings left to the AG” dated Sept 3, 2016; and “Explain turtle egg confusion first, Lim tells Minister” dated Sept 6, 2016, were wrong, baseless, ill-intended and had tarnished his reputation as a politician.

He had sought an apology from the defendants as well as damages.

In their defence, the defendants denied publishing and printing the articles with wrongful or bad intentions.

They said the articles published were produced under conditional safeguards and without malice.