"Newin has tried to incite hatred against me and I would like to ask the court to punish him for libel," Sondhi told the court.

He was speaking at a hearing to determine whether the court will launch a judicial review against Newin.

Sondhi's litigation is based on a television interview Newin gave on March 31. In his comments, Newin cited a Kom Chad Luek newspaper report to back up his allegation that Sondhi had offended the monarchy.

Sondhi countered that Newin maliciously quoted the report to attack him, even though the newspaper had published a correction on March 24 admitting editing mistakes.

He said in his original comments that he had called for Thaksin Shinawatra to accept responsibility as prime minister for engineering the botched privatisation of Egat.

But Newin wrongfully claimed the newspaper had accurately published the statement, which could be construed as offensive to the monarchy in relation to two royal decrees enacted to facilitate the Egat privatisation, Sondhi said.

The Southern Bangkok Criminal Court has scheduled next Friday to rule whether the case merits judicial review.

In another lawsuit, in which Sondhi is one of 10 defendants for libel, the defence entered a plea of not guilty to charges filed by Navy adviser Vice Admiral Kiatisak Damapong.

Acting as plaintiff on behalf of his family name, Kiatisak initiated the court battle to clear his family's name relating to the Shin Corp sell-off by Thaksin's family in January.

He contends that Sondhi, along with editors and management of Manager Group, including its Phujadkarn newspaper and website, allegedly defamed his entire clan, when only Thaksin's brother-in-law Banna-pot Damapong, was involved in the deal.

The Criminal Court ruled for the trial to commence in May 2007, and approved the list of witnesses submitted by the plaintiff and the defence.

Both sides will call 20 witnesses each to testify on May 8 to 18 next year.