Police report lodged against activist Lalitha for ‘lying’ to the court

A police report has been lodged against Lalitha Kunaratnam, the activist who had exposed a top graft buster and his shareholdings, for allegedly lying to the court.

(FMT) – According to a source close to the matter, Lalitha had allegedly made a false claim regarding her status as a researcher with the Center to Combat Corruption and Cronyism (C4).

She was alleged to have made the claim in her statement of defence on Feb 3 in response to a defamation lawsuit filed by Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission chief commissioner Azam Baki against her.

FMT was made to understand that the report was lodged at the Sentul police station at 3.43pm, on Wednesday, Feb 9.

The source said that C4 had in a press statement last month said Lalitha had not been attached to the outfit since December 2020.

“C4 also explained that they had nothing to do with the reports uploaded by Lalitha,” the source told FMT.

Azam sued Lalitha last month over her two-part article entitled “Business Ties Among MACC Leadership: How Deep Does It Go?”

He had previously maintained that he had done nothing wrong and said that his brother used his trading account to purchase shares and warrants in two public-listed companies in 2015 and 2016.

The Securities Commission Malaysia (SC) also said it could not “conclusively establish” any wrongdoing by Azam after completing its inquiry into the matter.

Lalitha is currently being investigated under Section 233 of the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998 (CMA) and Section 505 of the Penal Code for publishing statements “conducing to public mischief”.

When contacted, Sentul police chief Beh Eng Lai confirmed they had received the report.