He said the posting was also not done with malicious intent to damage the reputation of the plaintiff.
“That statement made by the defendant (Asyraf) through the posting did not at all refer to the plaintiff (Dzulkefly) and his reputation, directly or indirectly,” Asyraf said in his defence filed by Messrs Shahrul Hamidi & Haziq on April 27.
Asyraf, however, said that as a politician and former deputy minister, he had a political and social obligation to raise and comment on issues of public interest.
He added that as a citizen, he had the right to freedom of speech as guaranteed under the Federal Constitution.
Asyraf said the statement made in the tweet, which went viral, was about a supporting letter which proposed the appointment of the son of deputy defence minister Ikmal Hisham Abdul Aziz as a Pharmaniaga Berhad director.
He said the proposal was consented to by then defence minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob.
“As a result, the defendant raised the immoral practice of nepotism and cronyism that started when Pakatan Harapan (PH) was in power and should be stopped, but no reference was made to the plaintiff,” he said.
Asyraf said his posting was also not laced with sarcasm to allege that Dzulkelfy indulged in an immoral act by appointing his daughter, Nurul Iman, as a member of the board of trustees of Amanah Ikhtiar Malaysia in 2018.
Asyraf said Dzulkelfy also failed to give details in his statement of claim to allege that the posting, by clear inference or innuendo, had “lowered Dzulkelfy’s reputation in the eyes of ordinary men”.
“In fact, the plaintiff’s amended statement of claim is extremely confusing and makes it difficult to put up a complete defence,” he said.
Asyraf said that in the alternative, he was relying on the defence of justification, fair comment and qualified privilege to defeat the suit.
Dzulkelfy, represented by SN Nair, commenced action against Asyraf in December as he claimed the content of the tweet was meant to personally attack and humiliate him as Amanah’s strategic director.
He denied any wrongdoing in Nurul Iman’s appointment, saying it was made even before he became a minister and that her appointment as director was retained even after the PH government collapsed in February 2020.
The tweet was accompanied by a Sinar Harian screenshot (that was published on Jan 28, 2019 – 19 months before the tweet was posted).
Case management will be held before judicial commissioner Arief Emran Arifin on May 25.
Dzulkefly has also filed a similar suit against Najib Razak over the ex-prime minister’s Facebook post which alleged nepotism behind Nurul Iman’s appointment as a member of Amanah Ikhtiar’s board.
The Kuala Selangor MP said the post alleging nepotism on his part was untrue and that Najib was now making a bare denial regarding the issue even after the full chronology of events had been laid out.
Amanah Ikhtiar was set up in 1987 with the aim of reducing poverty among the low-income group by providing microcredit funding to them in a bid to improve their lives.