By DayakDaily Team
KUCHING, Dec 19: Jamilah Taib Murray, daughter of former Sarawak governor Tun Pehin Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud, partially lost her defamation lawsuit against the Swiss environmental NGO Bruno Manser Fonds (BMF) in the Basel Civil Court.
In a statement on Wednesday (Dec 18), BMF stated that the court had rejected the plaintiffs’ injunction application to stop the organisation from making seven defamatory statements allegedly directed at Jamilah, her husband Sean Murray and their Canada-based real estate company Sakto Group.
“The court ruled that the legal request by the plaintiffs for a ban was too broadly formulated as BMF had not made the statements in this form.
“The court also rejected the legal request to delete all publications allegedly containing these statements,” the statement read.
However, BMF noted that the court has not yet ruled on 259 text passages the plaintiffs sought to have deleted, nor on the allocation of court costs.
“The court upheld the claim as it did not consider it to be manifestly abusive,” BMF added.
BMF Managing Director Lukas Straumann welcomed the decision, calling it a significant blow to efforts aimed at suppressing the truth.
“We are confident we will also prevail in the remaining parts of the case,” he said.
BMF is a Swiss NGO dedicated to the conservation of tropical rainforests and to fight corruption in the timber industry. — DayakDaily
