‘STOP THE LIES’
ELECTION Commission chairman Tan Sri Mohd Hashim Abdullah slammed its detractors who called into question its impartiality and integrity.
REDELINEATION EXERCISE NECESSARY TO IMPROVE REACHABILITY FOR ELECTED REPS
KUALA LUMPUR: Press secretary to the prime minister Datuk Seri Tengku Sariffuddin Tengku Ahmad told the High Court here that Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad had launched political attacks to disrupt Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s leadership.
Tengku Sariffuddin said Dr Mahathir had used several issues, including the financial aid to Proton, 1Ma-laysia Development Bhd (1MDB) and his son Datuk Seri Mukhriz’s defeat in the contest for the Umno vice-president’s post in 2013, to attack Najib.
“The attacks continued after the political ties turned ugly between Dr Mahathir and the prime minister, which led to a political fight,” he said during cross-examination by Mukhriz’s lawyer, Mohamed Haniff Khatri Abdulla, in the hearing of a suit filed by the former Kedah menteri besar against him on allegations of issuing two defamatory statements in April 2016.
Tengku Sariffuddin, 56, the defendant, said the political attacks by Dr Mahathir were discovered by a research team of the Prime Minister’s Office Media Division following surveys and feedback received.
He said the 1MDB issue was not only raised by Dr Mahathir, but also by Mukhriz, former deputy prime minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin and former minister Datuk Seri Mohd Shafie Apdal, with the purpose of attacking the prime minister.
He disagreed with Haniff ’s suggestion that he had issued the two allegedly defamatory statements in 2016 to question Mukhriz’s credibility.
Tengku Sariffuddin, who has been Najib’s press secretary for 27 years, will resume his testimony when the hearing before judge Datuk Ahmad Zaidi Ibrahim continues on July 16.
Mukhriz, as the plaintiff, filed the suit on May 3, 2016, claiming that Tengku Sariffuddin had issued two defamatory statements against him in April 2016.
He claimed that the defamatory statements implied that Dr Mahathir and Muhyiddin were plotting to bring down the lawfully-elected government and that he was directly involved in a plot by the two.