File the right charge, RPK tells A-G

File the right charge, RPK tells A-G

The Star) - Raja Petra Kamarudin has vowed to return to Malaysia if the Attorney-General charges him with defaming former deputy army special branch chief Kol Azmi Zainal Abidin.

The Malaysia Today editor also promised that he would not contest the charge.

“I will plead guilty and face the jail sentence. That is my promise if they promise to file the correct charge,” he said in his No Holds Barred column yesterday.

However, Raja Petra said he refused to face the charge of defaming three other people.

“Charging me for defaming (Prime Minister's wife) Rosmah Mansor, Kol Aziz Buyong and Kol Norhayati Hassan is the wrong charge. The right charge should be for defaming Kol Azmi.

“They must promise that this is the only charge I will face and not slap me with another 10 charges for other crimes',” he said.

Raja Petra was charged with defaming Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor, Lt-Kol Abdul Aziz Buyong and Lt-Kol Norhayati Hassan in a statutory declaration (SD) made at the Jalan Duta Court complex at 10.25am on June 18, 2008.

However, the Kuala Lumpur Sessions Court subsequently granted him a discharge not amounting to an acquittal over the charge.

The two lieutenant-colonels have since filed a separate defamation suit against Raja Petra.

During an interview over TV3 on Wednesday, Raja Petra claimed that he had signed the declaration implicating Rosmah in the murder of Mongolian Altantuya Shaaribuu based on information given by Kol Azmi.

In his column, Raja Petra said police arrested and charged him for criminal defamation against the three but stressed that his allegations were against Kol Azmi.

He also insisted that he did not make a “U-turn” and reversed his story as mentioned by “pro-opposition media”.

“A U-turn means I have reversed my story. When my story now is consistent with what I said in June 2008, how could that be a U-turn?” he said, adding that for three years he had to live under the stigma of “defaming” the wrong person.

On his reasons for bringing up the matter now, he said he had been clearing up misconception about his SD since three years ago but no one listened.

Instead, he said, “what I alleged then was that a certain Kol Azmi Zainal Abidin made this allegation that Rosmah and the two colonels were at the scene the night Altantuya Shaariibuu was murdered.”

MALAYSIA TODAY