Zahid said he was advised by his lawyers not to continue with the suit since he had already been granted a discharge not amounting to an acquittal (DNAA).

“Although the defendant’s actions tarnished my good name and spread negative sentiments about me, after considering my lawyers’ advice and recent developments, I decided not to prolong the issue.

“I hope the defendants will be more responsible and transparent in publishing reports about me from now on,” he said in a statement.

Zahid, a deputy prime minister, also urged news outlets and stakeholders to uphold good journalistic standards and ethics in their publications.

He said news reports that were “selective, biased and inaccurate” would affect people’s confidence in news outlets and tarnish the integrity of the individuals or institutions concerned.

Zahid had faced 12 charges of criminal breach of trust, eight of corruption and 27 of money laundering in his Yayasan Akalbudi case. He was granted a DNAA on all 47 charges by the Kuala Lumpur High Court in September 2023.

The prosecution applied for the DNAA as the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission was still investigating the case after Zahid made representations to the Attorney-General’s Chambers.

The DNAA was also in view of the royal commission of inquiry formed to look into claims in former attorney-general Tommy Thomas’s controversial memoir, particularly on allegedly selective prosecution.

In his suit against Malaysiakini, Zahid asserted that the news portal’s articles had either misreported or misrepresented the court proceedings and cast him in a negative light.

The suit had named Malaysiakini, its then editor-in-chief Steven Gan and a journalist as defendants, citing 22 articles, including four Bernama stories, as well as readers’ comments.