This comes a day after Zaid Ibrahim and two of his partners said they will initiate legal action against Cheah if she did not retract her statement and apologise by Sept 2.

“(Cheah’s) press release on Aug 19 has attacked me and my legal team in the strongest of terms, a stance that is both mischievous and highly defamatory.

“She will have to justify her condemnation in a court of law,” said Hisyam in a brief statement.

On July 25, Najib appointed Zaid’s law firm to replace Shafee & Co as solicitors in his final SRC International appeal before the Federal Court, with Hisyam roped in to be lead counsel in place of Shafee Abdullah.

After the apex court turned down several requests for additional time to prepare for the appeal, Najib discharged the firm as solicitors as well as Zaid, Liew Teck Huat and Rueben Mathiavanam as co-counsels on Aug 18.

A similar request to discharge Hisyam as lead counsel was rejected by Chief Justice Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat.

Zaid and his two partners claimed that Cheah’s statement suggested that they had “deliberately acted unprofessionally” “with an improper agenda to abuse the process of the court”, that they resorted to “unscrupulous strategies”, and that their “conduct was designed to pervert the course of justice” and “bring the legal profession into disrepute”.

They also claimed Cheah’s statement suggested the lawyers were “unprofessional, incompetent and ignorant of the professional rules of practice and etiquette”, had “no compunction in abusing the process of the court”, had acted “in flagrant contempt of court” and were “not fit to practise as advocates and solicitors”.