KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — A Malaysian court ordered a blogger to pay the information minister 400,000 ringgit ($132,000) Tuesday for defaming him in an article that implied he raped his Indonesian housemaid.

Rais Yatim is the first senior government official to mount a legal battle against a blogger in Malaysia, where authorities often accuse opposition-linked blogs of spreading lies to tarnish the government's image.

Kuala Lumpur High Court Judge Zabariah Yusof ruled that Amizudin Ahmat defamed Rais in an entry on his blog last December that featured the minister's photograph beside an article about speculation that a Cabinet member had raped his Indonesian maid.

Zabariah said Amizudin had been "reckless" because the rape allegation could have destroyed the 69-year-old minister's reputation and undermined relations between Malaysia and neighbouring Indonesia.

Rais called the verdict "a milestone in the apportionment of justice," according to the national news agency, Bernama.

"It is a great day," Bernama quoted Rais as saying. "It truly reflects our confidence in our judiciary. It also rings a bell for those who constantly write about others in blogs or columns, (to) respect the rights of others."

Amizudin, a member of opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim's People's Justice Party, struck a defiant tone on his Malay-language blog after the court ruling. He wrote in a brief statement that "the fight will go on," but Puspawati Rosman, one of his lawyers, said they had not decided whether to appeal.

Amizudin's lawyers had argued that he wasn't the writer of the blog article, which was taken from an opposition news website. The article did not identify Rais, but Amizudin added the minister's photograph on his blog.

The rape allegation was first made in an internal report by Indonesian labour group Migrant Care, which interviewed the maid in 2007 before she returned to Indonesia. The report leaked online, but the maid this year denied being raped.

Opposition-linked blogs claimed the case was originally covered up by the administration of then-Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who stepped down in 2009. Government officials have rejected the allegation.

Rais has regularly warned Malaysians to be more cautious about what they write online. Over the past year, authorities have arrested or charged more than a dozen people who made statements on Facebook and blogs that allegedly insulted Malaysia's royalty or stirred religious tensions.