SINGAPORE - The defamation suit brought by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong against financial adviser and blogger Leong Sze Hian is set to be heard in the High Court from July 6 to 10.
The trial dates were set on Monday (June 8) at a pre-trial conference.
PM Lee had filed the suit over a post shared by Mr Leong on his Facebook page on Nov 7, 2018, which contained a link to an article by Malaysian news site The Coverage.
The article alleged that former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak had signed "secret deals" with PM Lee in exchange for Singapore banks' help in laundering money from 1Malaysia Development Berhad or 1MDB.
PM Lee's lawyers, from Davinder Singh Chambers, said the article's allegations were "false and baseless", and it was clear Mr Leong had published the post "maliciously and to damage our client".
He sought aggravated damages and an injunction that Mr Leong be prevented from publishing or disseminating the defamatory allegations, or other allegations of complicity in matters relating to the embattled sovereign wealth fund.
In his defence, Mr Leong, who is represented by Mr Lim Tean, denied that he was being malicious.
He said in court papers that he took down his Facebook post on Nov 10 after being told to do so by the Infocomm Media Development Authority.
He also argued that the article, on how Singapore and PM Lee had become targets of the investigation into 1MDB, was "a matter of public interest... whether or not it was correct".
Mr Leong also filed a counterclaim against PM Lee, claiming that the defamation suit against him was an abuse of the process of the court.
In March last year, the High Court allowed an application by PM Lee to strike out the counterclaim.
The court said the abuse of court process is not recognised in Singapore law as a basis for one party to bring legal action against another.
The decision was upheld in September last year by the Court of Appeal, which noted that recognising abuse of court process as a cause of action would "encourage unnecessary satellite litigation".
