KOTA KINABALU – The Sandakan police today confirmed having received a report against Lalitha Kunaratnam, who exposed the alleged impropriety of troubled Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) chief commissioner Tan Sri Azam Baki.
District police chief Azhar Hamin said the report was lodged by an assistant enforcement officer from the Road Transport Department (RTD) on December 8.
This is the second police report against the investigative journalist after a senior MACC assistant commissioner, Mohan Munusamy, had lodged one earlier.
The RTD officer, identified as Fazli Mohamed Yasin, 48, had lodged the police report after reading the first part of Lalitha’s article titled Business Ties Among MACC Leadership: How Deep Does It Go? and part of the article of the same title.
The article was reportedly written in two parts. It delved into Azam’s alleged actions, as well as his supposed ties and ownership details within several public-listed companies.
Fazli said that he was surprised by the content of the article, which he alleged was clearly slanderous, not just towards Azam Baki but also to all enforcement officers in the country, including himself.
“Not content with slandering the enforcement officer, the writer also slandered the enforcement officer’s family as being corrupt or misusing power if they own any shares or become company directors,” Fazli wrote on his police report, which was sighted by The Vibes.
According to him, Lalitha gave a bad impression of enforcement officers in the country and their family members, making it seem as though they are not allowed under the law to obtain shares or become directors of companies.
“I believe there are no laws that do not allow us (enforcement officers) and family members to obtain shares and be directors of companies,” he said.
Fazli said that the allegations are in contradiction with the federal constitution, which allows any person of Malaysian citizenship to own assets.
“With this, I believe the article is a clear misrepresentation, aimed at giving a bad impression of any enforcement officers in the eyes of the public,” said Fazli.
He called upon Lalitha to be probed under laws such as Section 241 of the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998, which outlines the offence of giving a false and misleading statement; Section 8A of the Printing Presses and the Publication Act 1984 (the offence of publishing false news); and Sections 499 and 501 of the Penal Code (respectively, defamation and printing or engraving matter known to be defamatory). – The Vibes, January 10, 2021
