Anti-corruption activist Lalitha Kunaratnam (right) is pictured at the MACC office in Putrajaya July 24, 2019. — Picture courtesy of N Sylvester
KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 10 — A police report has been lodged against anti-corruption activist Lalitha Kunaratnam, who wrote about Tan Sri Azam Baki’s share acquisition in two public-listed companies last year, for allegedly lying to the court.
News portal Free Malaysia Today (FMT) reported an anonymous source saying that the report was over her alleged false employment status with anti-graft NGO, the Center to Combat Corruption and Cronyism (C4).
She was alleged to have made the claim in her statement of defence on February 3, in response to a defamation lawsuit filed by Azam, who is the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission Chief Commissioner.
The source was reported saying that C4 had in a press statement last month, said that Lalitha had not been attached to the outfit since December 2020.
“C4 also explained that it had nothing to do with the reports uploaded by Lalitha,” the unnamed source told FMT, adding that the NGO had also explained that it had no relation to the reports uploaded by Lalitha.
Azam last month filed a lawsuit against Lalitha over her article titled “Business Ties Among MACC Leadership: How Deep Does It Go?”
He is demanding a public apology and RM10 million from the whistleblower, for alleged defamation over her reports.
The Securities Commission (SC) Malaysia concluded that Azam had full control of his trading account despite telling the public it was used by his brother, Nasir Baki, days before that, and cleared him of any wrongdoing.
The regulator had on January 19, said it decided that a law — which only allows share trading accounts to be used by the person benefiting from it or which disallows proxy trading — had not been violated, as independent evidence from an inquiry showed that Azam had control of and operated his trading account by giving instructions to buy, sell and trade shares from the account.
The SC had launched the investigation after Azam previously publicly declared in a press conference that his share trading account was used by his brother to buy shares – a move widely perceived as proxy trading by the public.