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KUALA LUMPUR, March 29 — Lawyer Rosli Dahlan who acts for 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) in the company’s efforts to recover funds via settlements has issued a legal letter to anti-corruption watchdog Centre to Combat Corruption and Cronyism (C4 Centre) over alleged defamatory posts on Twitter and Facebook.
In the letter of demand dated today and sighted by Malay Mail, Rosli is demanding for C4 Centre to remove the alleged defamatory posts and to agree to pay RM10 million in compensation.
The 1MDB lawyer is also demanding for C4 Centre to provide an unequivocal public apology to be published prominently and immediately on its website, Facebook page and Twitter account, and to have all news portals which had posted the allegedly defamatory materials to also post the same apology with the same prominence.
Rosli’s lawyers also demanded for C4 Centre to provide written undertakings to not repeat the same or similar statements that were allegedly defamatory, while also saying that failure to comply with the demands within 48 hours would result in legal action to obtain orders such as injunctions and compensation.
Rosli’s lawyers also told C4 Centre that its statements in the allegedly defamatory posts are “false, untrue, unwarranted, unsubstantiated, defamatory, malicious and mischievous” and had harmed his reputation, further claiming that the remarks amount to an offence of criminal defamation which is punishable under Section 500 of the Penal Code.
In the letter of demand, Rosli’s lawyers highlighted a statement that was posted on both C4 Centre’s Twitter and Facebook page on March 25.
The lawyers said the social media posts by C4 Centre carried the meaning, among other things, that, Rosli had purportedly siphoned funds from the Goldman Sachs settlement to Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia and that it had also implied him to purportedly be a corrupt person.
But Rosli’s lawyers said that C4 Centre’s statements and any implied meaning from the statements are false and “completely baseless” and “mere fabrications”, adding that the remarks had or have the potential to injure Rosli’s reputation and had significantly prejudiced him.
Rosli’s lawyers also highlighted that Bersatu’s secretary-general and Bersatu’s information chief had respectively on March 6 and March 20 denied allegations of kickbacks of RM500 million, but claimed that C4 Centre had still went on to publish the March 25 social media posts without first verifying the matter.
Rosli’s lawyers also highlighted that 1MDB had on March 26 issued a public statement to explain that the company’s lawyers “are remunerated based on a pre-agreed time cost, and not based on commission or a percentage of the value of settlements, or assets recovered”.
The lawyers went on to say that the C4 Centre had not removed the March 25 posts on Twitter and Facebook, accusing C4 Centre of having posted the posts in alleged “pursuit of cheap publicity”.
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