KUALA LUMPUR: A team of policemen was sent to the United Kingdom to record a statement from blogger Raja Petra Kamaruddin over three articles he published recently.
The articles, titled “Strong rumours surrounding the AG: part 1”, “Strong rumours surrounding the AG: part 2” and “Strong rumours surrounding the AG: part 3”, saw the blogger making claims of corruption against Attorney-General Tan Sri Mohamed Apandi Ali.
Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Mohamad Fuzi Harun said the investigation team from Federal police headquarters in Bukit Aman was deployed to the UK on Nov 1 to record Raja Petra’s statement in regards to the allegations made against Apandi.
“The team has recorded Raja Petra’s statement. The case is being investigated under the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission Act and Section 500 of the Penal Code for defamation,” he said when contacted.
Raja Petra, who is currently staying in the UK, had jotted down his experience with police in his latest article.
He said he spent about five hours with the three policemen, who had asked questions regarding the reasons he wrote the articles, if there had been “instructions” to do so, his motivations for writing the articles and what benefit he may have gotten from writing them, among others.
He said the session took five hours to complete as he answered the questions in detail, adding that the entire session was video-recorded and a full transcript of the conversation printed out, which he needed to sign.
Raja Petra claimed he had handed over files comprising evidence he had concerning his allegations, and that he had agreed to send them new evidence if any are sent by his sources in the future.
He claimed that since the articles were published, many new documents began to come in which threw fresh light on earlier assumptions.
“I pointed out to police that from these new (bits of) evidence, a picture is emerging that the attorney-general is a victim of name-dropping and it appears he may be innocent after all.
“Hence I regret any grief that he may have suffered due to the negative perception on the office of the Attorney-General,” he wrote.
Raja Petra said he told police his motivation for writing the articles was to ensure that the DAP-led Pakatan Harapan does not come to power and that he wanted his home state, Selangor, to be returned to a “Malay-Muslim government”.