New evidence not submitted

New evidence not submitted

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP): A Malaysian court dismissed on Monday an application by a Canadian journalist with the Far Eastern Economic Review to introduce new evidence in his bid to overturn a three-month jail sentence for contempt of court.

The official Bernama news agency said the Court of Appeal dismissed the application by Murray Hiebert, 50, to introduce "a correction piece" as fresh evidence.

The journalist's lawyers argued that at the time of the original trial, the defendant had tried to present a corrected article to the court.

But the appeal court's president, Lamin Yunus, who sat with Ahmad Fairuz Sheikh Abdul Halim, agreed with lawyers for the original plaintiff who said the corrected article had only been produced after Hiebert had been found liable by the original court. The hearing was adjourned until May 25.

Hiebert was convicted for his article entitled "See you in court" and became the first journalist to be sentenced to jail in Malaysia for committing contempt in the course of his duties.