Actress wins RM400,000 in damages
KUALA LUMPUR: Actress Maria Farida was awarded RM400,000 in damages by the High Court here yesterday after winning a defamation suit that she filed against a cosmetics businesswoman and her daughter last year.
Judicial Commissioner Datuk Wan Ahmad Farid Wan Salleh made the decision after taking into account the failure by the defendants — Hadijah Mohamed Mokhtar and her daughter, Nur Shazleen Anis Mohd Yusoff — to be in court for the hearing.
He said the court took into account the implications of the slander committed by the defendants against Maria Farida, whose real name is Maria Faridah Atienza.
He said the defendants had uploaded defamatory statements against the actress on their Instagram accounts.
“The first defendant (Hadijah) has 17,300 followers on her Instagram, while the second defendant (Nur Shazleen) has about 13,000 followers.”
The court ordered Hadijah and Nur Shazleen to pay damages of RM300,000 and RM100,000 respectively to Maria Farida. The duo were also ordered to pay the actress RM50,000 in costs.
Maria Farida, represented by lawyer Tengku Haris Tengku Rostam, was not in court yesterday.
Hadijah and Nur Shazleen were represented by lawyer Hermes Media Putra Ibrahim.
The court had issued a full judgment on the case on Nov 7 last year after both defendants failed to comply with court orders, including not attending court proceedings.
In the judgment, the court, among others, issued an order for the two defendants to publish an apology, with its contents to be agreed to by the plaintiff before its publication in the media and posted on the defendants’ Facebook and Instagram accounts.
The court also dismissed Hadijah’s counter claim against Maria Farida for allegedly making defamatory statements on a television entertainment programme on Oct 25, 2015.
Maria Farida, 48, sued Hadijah, better known as Karen Rahman, and Nur Shazleen on Dec 30, 2016, for allegedly making defamatory statements against the actress on Instagram and Facebook, which were picked up by the media.
In the statement of claim, Maria Farida said she received several slanderous text messages from Hadijah and that her photographs were used to promote Hadijah’s KR Beauty Care products, although the first defendant (Hadijah) was prohibited from doing so.
Maria Farida claimed that the defamatory statements affected her reputation and career as an actress.