PUTRAJAYA (Feb 23): Mkini Dotcom Sdn Bhd, the company that operates news portal Malaysiakini, had today paid the RM500,000 fine imposed by the Federal Court for contempt of court after Malaysiakini failed to establish that it had no knowledge of five readers comments which were offending to the judiciary.
“Yes, we have paid today,” Mkini Dotcom CEO Premesh Chandran told theedgemarkets.com.
On Friday (Feb 19), the Federal Court gave Malaysiakini until tomorrow to settle the fine.
On Saturday (Feb 20), news reports, quoting Malaysiakini, indicated that Malaysiakini had collected RM688,120 through its fundraising initiative to pay the RM500,000 fine.
On Friday, a seven-member Federal Court bench, in a landmark majority six-to-one decision, found Malaysiakini guilty of contempt, but not its chief editor.
The seven-member Federal Court bench comprised Court of Appeal President Tan Sri Rohana Yusuf, Chief Judge of Malaya Tan Sri Azahar Mohamed, Chief Judge of Sabah and Sarawak Datuk Abang Iskandar Abang Hashim, besides Federal Court Judges Datuk Seri Mohd Zawawi Salleh, Datuk Vernon Ong Lam Kiat, Datuk Abdul Rahman Sebli and Datuk Nallini Pathmanathan.
Among the seven, Nallini was the only judge who disagreed with the majority decision.