‘Short skirt’ lawsuit sees settlement

Minister to retract statements against chess federation secretary

KUALA LUMPUR: A settlement has been reached in the lawsuit filed by Malaysian Chess Federation secretary Sophian A. Yusuf against Zuraida Kamaruddin over an incident where a 12yearold girl was allegedly not allowed to participate in a tournament because of her attire.

Zuraida, who is currently the Housing and Local Government Minister, agreed to retract any insinuation against Sophian, including a statement she made on April 29, 2017.

Also settled was a suit filed by Sophian against the chess coach who first wrote about the issue on Facebook.

High Court Judicial Commissioner Rohani Ismail recorded both settlements in chambers in the presence of Sophian’s lawyer Harris Abdullah as well as lawyers Latheefa Koya and Shahid Adli Kamarudin, who acted for Zuraida.

Latheefa said Zuraida had retracted any insinuation against Sophian which might have been included in the statement she made on April 29 last year.

She said Zuraida would issue a statement over the issue in a newspaper within a week.

Sophian alleged that on April 29, Zuraida had uttered a defamatory statement in her capacity as Wanita PKR chief.

He claimed that Zuraida’s statement meant that he was a perverted man, a sexcrazed paedophile who was induced due to the girl’s dressing.

The statement was made after Sophian did not allow the girl to participate in the chess tournament because he deemed her skirt to be too short.

Sophian also sought a permanent injunction to restrain Zuraida from repeating or publishing her statement via her Facebook account or newspapers and for her to make an apology in two mainstream media publications.

He also asked for general, special, exemplary and aggravated damages.