The High Court today awarded RM150,000 to Seremban-based lawyer Anthony Fernandez for defamation and wrongful arrest, following his detention in 2011 for allegedly sodomising a security guard. Lawyer Haresh Mahadevan said judge Datuk Siti Mariah Ahmad increased the award quantum following an appeal on damages. She also awarded RM15,000 in costs. “The judge agreed with us that the senior assistant registrar (Nur Syafawati Arifin) applied the wrong principle of law in arriving at her decision,” he told The Malaysian Insider. The decision was made today in Siti Mariah’s chambers at the Lumpur High Court, where she has been transferred. The judge had earlier heard submissions from Haresh and government lawyer, federal counsel Habibah Harun. In November 2013, Nur Syafawati awarded Anthony RM14,000 in damages after an assessment. She also awarded another RM7,000 in costs. Dissatisfied, the lawyer appealed that decision to the High Court on grounds that the sum was “insufficient to compensate him for the suffering experienced”.
Anthony, who sought RM5 million in aggravated and exemplary damages, and mental torture, had filed a suit against the government and five others on December 9, 2003 (for wrongful arrest and defamation). He named former Seremban OCPD Abdul Khalid Hassan, former Negri Sembilan CID chief Abdul Razak Abdul Ghani, the state police chief, inspector-general of police and government as defendants The lawyer, who is a younger brother of former Seremban MP John Fernandez, said he was wrongfully accused by the police of sodomising Norashid Yusof, then 23. The alleged incident was said to have taken place in a toilet at the Terminal 1 bus station in Seremban on Feb 17, 2001. However, Norashid later retracted his report that Anthony had sodomised him on grounds of wrong identity. The victim said it could be another person who resembled the lawyer.
Anthony testified that he was not in Seremban at the time of the incident on February 17, 2001, as he was vacationing in Port Dickson with his family. However, he was still put through the humiliation of being arrested and subjected to a medical examination. Anthony said his reputation was tarnished, especially since the police did not retract their statement linking him to the crime, even after arresting the actual individual involved. Haresh, who was assisted by Ramzani Idris, said then judge Datuk Abdul Alim Aman in April 2009 found the government liable. However, he ordered the court registrar to make an assessment on damages. Haresh said the police did not put up a defence, citing it was above the law and the plaintiff’s lawyer wrote to then prime minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi to confirm this position. Alim then struck out the defence when there was no reply from Abdullah and the judge said Anthony’s claim remained intact since it was not challenged. – May 22, 2015.
This article is sourced from : The Malaysia Insider