Thesun 2009-08-25 Page01 Caning Put Off

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No. 4831 PP 2644/12/2009 (023092)

Tuesday August 25, 2009

TELLING IT AS IT IS

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KUALA LUMPUR: MCA president and Transport Minister Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat yesterday filed a RM500 million suit against Bintulu Member of Parliament Datuk Seri Tiong King Sing for defamation. Ong’s lawyers Messrs Tan, Goh & Associates filed the suit at the High Court registry in Jalan Duta. He claimed that Tiong, the executive director of Kuala Dimensi Sdn Bhd (KDSB), had issued a defamatory statement about giving him RM10 million, which was published in the Malaysiakini website on Aug 12. In his statement of claim, Ong said the statement is untrue and he wanted Tiong to retract it and publish an apology to him in all the major newspapers.

Ong sues Tiong for RM500m He is also seeking aggravated and exemplary damages and an injunction to restrain Tiong or his agent from further making any defamatory statement against him regarding the issue. Ong claimed that the statement was made in bad faith and with malice to prevent a fair and correct investigation into the abuse of funds by the Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) and Kuala Dimensi’s role in the affair. Kuala Dimensi is the turnkey contractor for the controversial RM4.9 billion PKFZ project which is also the subject of a probe by the Public Accounts Committee. Ong said the statement had tarnished his reputation, image, integrity and good name in the eyes of the public.

Tiong made the allegation two weeks ago after KDSB was alleged to have been involved in irregularities regarding excessive claims of between RM500 million and RM1 billion in a report compiled by the PKFZ special task force headed by a senior lawyer. The minister had on Aug 13 sent a letter to Tiong, chairman of the Barisan Nasional Backbenchers Club, demanding that he retract the statement and apologise, but Tiong refused to do so. Ong had also lodged a police report over Tiong’s statement for alleged criminal defamation on Aug 13. Ong had also issued a statement in his blog (www.ongteekeat.com) that he is doing this in

order to seek justice and protect and clear his name and honour. “In view of the grave and serious allegations, I am forced to claim RM500 million against the defendant and all damages awarded will be channelled to educational and charitable organisations,” he said. It was reported that KDSB had filed a lawsuit against Ong and Port Klang Authority chairman Datuk Lee Hwa Beng on Thursday for releasing the PricewaterhouseCoopers report on the PKFZ project. One of Ong’s counsel, Ronnie Tan Tuan King, said that should Ong win the case, he would donate the money for education aid and to charity. – Bernama

Caning put off KUANTAN: The caning of model Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno, who was ordered to receive six lashes of the rotan and fined RM5,000 for drinking beer in public, has been deferred until after the fasting month. Pahang executive councillor for Religious Affairs, Dakwah, Unity and NGOs Datuk Mohd Sahfri Abdul Aziz said the state religious department deferred the punishment until the fasting month is over on the advice of the Chief Syariah Judge of Pahang, Datuk Abdul Rahman Yunus. “However, the sentence will remain,” he said. Ramadan, a 30-day period of fasting and contemplation, started on Saturday. Kartika was being taken by van, accompanied by two female and one male religious officers, to the Kajang women’s prison yesterday to be caned when the order was issued. The van had travelled only a short distance from her father’s home in Sungai Siput before turning back. Kartika initially refused to alight, saying she wanted to know if she would be freed. “I will not come out without a black and white document explaining the status of what has happened. I am surprised and speechless,” she told reporters gathered at her home before her father persuaded her to leave the vehicle. She later lodged a police report on the “confusion” over her sentencing. She made the report at 12.30pm to state that she had not run

away from the sentence. Her father, Shukarno Abdul Muttalib, said the religious department officers took Kartika from the family home but sent her back 30 minutes later, saying the sentence could not yet be carried out. He said he did not understand what was happening and feared that the authorities might accuse his daughter of avoiding being sentenced. He said because of that, he advised her to make the police report. Kartika, 32, a mother of two Kartika waves to her family and and married to a Singaporean, friends yesterday as she leaves in a was arrested during a raid at a van, expecting to be caned in Kajang hotel lounge in Cherating about Prison. But 30 minutes later, she was 11.40pm on July 11 last year for back in her father’s home. breaching Syariah law, which forbids Muslims from consuming alcohol. On July 20, the Syariah tion, High Court fined her RM5,000 or and the story was three years jail and six strokes of highlighted by major networks yesterday and the cane after she pleaded guilty. The caning the news carried online by a dozen agencies and sentence was the first of its kind on a woman. news websites. Reporters from wire agencies Kartika refused to appeal the sentence, and descended at her home to record the event. had instead asked for her punishment to be Bar Council president Ragunath Kesavan, in carried out as soon as possible and in public. an immediate reaction yesterday, called on the The case has attracted international atten- authorities to overturn the sentence of whip-

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ping. He said there are compelling reasons to overturn the sentence as there is serious doubt over the legality and propriety of the Syariah High Court’s imposition of a supplementary sentence of imprisonment simply for the sake of carrying out the whipping. He also urged the government to reject whipping as a form of sentencing for any offence and to abolish it altogether. – Agencies