KUALA LUMPUR – The Attorney-General (AG) must explain why criminal defamation charges are being brought against business journalists who reported on alleged stock market manipulation, Kepong MP Lim Lip Eng said.
The DAP lawmaker said the businessman who was allegedly defamed by business paper The Edge in two articles on alleged penny stock manipulation should have filed a civil defamation suit instead.
“(The AG) is duty-bound to explain to the public his decision to use criminal defamation with taxpayers’ money when it is the reputation of a corporate figure and public-listed companies that is involved.
“The AG should also explain, moving forward, if that means that any defamed individuals and commercial entities can now lodge police reports and expect criminal defamation action by the AG,” Lim said in a statement today.
The Edge publication’s former editor-in-chief, Ahmad Azam Mohd Aris, was charged yesterday with two counts of criminal defamation and had claimed trial to both charges at the Petaling Jaya magistrates’ court.
The publication’s contributing editor, Shanmugam Murugasu, who is currently overseas, was also jointly accused in one of the charges, but was granted a discharge not amounting to acquittal pending his return to the country.
The charges were filed under Section 500 of the Penal Code on defamation, which carries a prison sentence of up to two years, or a fine or both.
The articles were Hidden Hands Behind Penny Stocks Surge Under Scrutiny, published on April 12, 2021, and Hidden Hands Behind Penny Stock Surge on September 21, 2020.
The charges were filed under Section 500 of the Penal Code on defamation, which carries a prison sentence of up to two years, or a fine or both.
The Edge Media Group publisher and group chief executive officer Datuk Ho Kay Tat has defended the editors and the reports, asserting the publication’s duty to the public, more so when people have lost money due to collapsing stock prices.
“As a media that reports on the stock market and corporate sector extensively, we have a responsibility to highlight important matters to the investing public – including alerting them about how stock prices are being manipulated,” he said in a statement yesterday.
“We are, therefore, baffled as to why police and the deputy public prosecutor’s office of Kuala Lumpur are pressing defamation charges against us for informing investors about stock market manipulation.”
Ho also said that the deputy public prosecutor should have told the complainant, a private businessman, to file a civil suit against The Edge instead of using public resources.
The two articles alleged that a group of individuals acting in concert – who control a number of publicly listed companies – had manipulated penny stocks. – The Vibes, September 14, 2022
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