KUALA LUMPUR, March 3 -- The Federal Court has released the full grounds of its majority ruling in Malaysiakini's contempt of court case over five readers' comments, explaining in full why six of the seven judges there had found the news portal guilty and decided on a RM500,000 sum as fine.

Court of Appeal president Tan Sri Rohana Yusuf, who had chaired the seven-judge panel and penned the majority ruling, cited "public interest" for the decision in meting out a sentence that was "not too lenient" to discourage others from committing contempt of court.

In Rohana's full 76-page grounds of majority judgment that was dated February 19 and uploaded yesterday on the judiciary's website, she noted that Malaysiakini's lawyer had suggested a fi...