Counsel SN Nair, who was to appear for Dzulkefly, informed judicial commissioner Arziah Apandi that he intended to discharge himself at the outset of today’s proceedings.

Nair gave no reasons for doing so.

Lawyer Farhan Shafee, who appeared for Najib, did not object.

Arziah allowed Nair’s application and fixed the trial to begin on March 5 next year.

She also fixed case management on July 10 and vacated all hearing dates fixed for this week.

Dzulkefly filed the suit in his private capacity on Dec 31, 2021, over Najib’s claim that he had practised nepotism by securing the appointment of his daughter, Nurul Iman, as a board member of Amanah Ikhtiar Malaysia two years earlier.

In his statement of claim, Dzulkefly said Najib’s Facebook post on Aug 24, 2020, reported by a Malay daily, had defamed him.

The Kuala Selangor MP said Najib’s post was still on his Facebook page as of November 2021.

Dzulkefly claimed that Nurul’s appointment was made before he became the health minister in the Pakatan Harapan (PH) government, and that she was reappointed by the microcredit organisation in 2021.

Najib is relying on the defence of justification, qualified privilege and fair comment.

He said the Facebook post was accompanied by a Sinar Harian screenshot published on Jan 28, 2019 – 19 months before Najib’s Facebook post. Najib also claimed that the post was to allow the public to assess the issue in a fair manner.

Najib said it was to highlight the “hypocrisy” of the PH coalition in alleging nepotism and cronyism in political appointments previously made by Barisan Nasional.

It was intended to show that such appointments also took place in various government-linked companies when PH ran the government between May 2018 and February 2020, Najib’s defence statement added.