A husband-and-wife team of ranking army officers today filed a defamation suit against popular blogger Raja Petra Kamaruddin over his statutory declaration which implicated them in the murder of Mongolian Altantuya Shaariibuu.

Lt Col Abdul Aziz Buyong and Lt Col Norhayati Hassan filed the suit at the Kuala Lumpur High Court this morning.

raja petra court case 060508 petra arrested The couple is seeking RM1 million in damages each, exemplary damages and other costs. They also sought an injunction to restrain Raja Petra from repeating the alleged defamatory remarks.

Raja Petra had in a statutory declaration affirmed on June 18 implicated the couple as well as Deputy Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak's wife Rosmah Mansor in the death of Altantuya.

According to the statutory declaration, Aziz had placed C4 on various parts of Altantuya's body while being witnessed by Rosmah and Norhayati.

Social stigma

The couple claim the implication in the murder had caused them undue social stigma and was libelous in nature.

Last week Raja Petra was arrested and charged with criminal defamation under Section 500 of the Penal Code. He is out on a RM2,000 bail, with the trial set to start on Aug 15.

This is not the first time the popular blogger's articles have attracted lawsuits.

On May 27, the Alor Star High Court ordered Raja Petra to pay damages over libel claims by a university head.

University Utara Malaysia and its vice-chancellor Nordin Kardi filed a lawsuit against Raja Petra over an article that alleged Nordin had plagiarised an article.