Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak and his wife have slapped a libel suit on an opposition party lawmaker and online news portal owner for alleging that they manipulated fuel subsidies for personal gain.
The couple filed the suit at the High Court Registry here on Thursday. The libel suit was served against Rafizi Ramli, vice president of the People’s Justice Party, and co-defendant Chan Chee Kong.
They said that the recording of Ramli’s speech was uploaded by Chan onto Media Rakyat’s website, YouTube channel, and Facebook page, The Star reported.
Through the suit, Najib and his wife Rosmah Mansor seek unspecified general, aggravated and exemplary damages, and five per cent annual interest on said damages.
Rafizi’s comments, in a speech last December, said that Najib and Mansor had “stolen public funds and thereby betrayed the people of Malaysia”, the lawsuit said.
They seek an injunction to restrain Rafizi and Chan from further publishing the alleged defamatory statements and for the defendants to publish a written apology in national newspapers and magazines.
In the suit, Najib said that the statement implied he had unlawfully stolen the people’s monies in connection with the removal of oil subsidies for personal gain.
Among others, Najib said that he was portrayed as a person guilty of theft and corruption, was untrustworthy and unfit to hold public office.
Mansor said that the words implied she unlawfully benefited from the people’s monies allegedly stolen by her husband.
They claimed that this had caused them to suffer public scandal, odium and contempt by friends, acquaintances and the public both, locally and internationally, and that Rafizi’s statements had caused damage to their reputations.
The two plaintiffs said that Chan had failed to exercise responsible journalism by taking steps to verify the truth of the allegations before republishing the speech.
