In a brief Facebook post, the former prime minister confirmed receiving the writ of summons and statement of claim from Anwar’s lawyers.

“Since Anwar has chosen to take this matter to court, I am leaving it to my lawyers to deal with this case according to the law,” said the Perikatan Nasional chairman.

The suit, filed by SN Nair & Partners at the Kuala Lumpur High Court on behalf of the prime minister, seeks general, compensatory, aggravated and exemplary damages from Muhyiddin, who was named as defendant.

Anwar has also sought an injunction to restrain Muhyiddin from further uttering, writing, publishing or distributing the impugned alleged libellous words, or words of the same or similar effect.

On Dec 7, Anwar issued a letter of demand to Muhyiddin over the matter but received no response, leading to the filing of the suit.

The prime minister had demanded that an unconditional apology be published in newspapers and media of his choice. He had also sought compensation over “serious injury” to his reputation.

In his statement of claim, Anwar said Muhyiddin’s remarks were uttered on Dec 5 at a campaign event in support of PN candidate Azman Nasrudin at Taman Selasih in Kulim during the run-up to the Padang Serai parliamentary election.

Muhyiddin’s remarks were published on TikTok and garnered about 1.1 million views, shared 2,169 times, liked 21,400 times, and commented on 6,061 times, the court filing claimed.

The Selangor government had denied Muhyiddin’s claim that Anwar was paid RM15 million, saying he was only paid a token sum of RM1 a year for his services.