KUALA LUMPUR, June 20 (Bernama) -- The High Court here today set Nov 1 as the trial date for Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim's RM100 million defamation suit against Malaysian Indian United Party (MUIP) president, senator Datuk S. Nallakaruppan and two others.

High Court judicial commissioner Vazeer Alam Mydin Meera set the date after Anwar's lawyer Mohd Afiq Mohd Noor informed the court that his client had filed an affidavit in response to Nallakaruppan's statement of defence.

On March 26, Anwar filed a suit against Nallakaruppan, Utusan Melayu (Malaysia) Bhd and the newspaper's group editor-in-chief, Datuk Abdul Aziz Ishak, over his (Nallakaruppan) statements in a front-page article of Utusan Malaysia on March 20, which allegedly tarnished Anwar's good name.

Anwar's statement of claim said the words in the article were false, baseless and published with malicious intent.

The statement also said a letter to the defendant demanding a retraction of the defamatory words was ignored.

Anwar is seeking RM100 million in general, aggravated and exemplary damages, cost and other relief deemed fit by the court.