PENANG Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng said today that he has no choice but to seek redress in court when falsehoods were used to insinuate that wrongdoing had been committed when the state government bought his official car at a discount.

He told the Penang High Court that the purchase of the car, a Mercedes Benz S300L, in late 2013 had nothing to do with local tycoon Tan Kok Ping, who was said to have secured the discount for him.

“You can criticise based on facts, not falsehoods. To suddenly drag Tan Kok Ping in was unwarranted. He was never in the picture,” he said in court when examined by his lawyer, N. Mureli.

Lim was testifying today in his suit against now-defunct news portal FZ Sdn Bhd, and its managing editor Terence Fernandez, over an article published on Jan 3, 2014, titled, “MACC begins probe on Merc purchase”.

Lim is claiming that the article was done to intentionally and maliciously damage his name, reputation, and political career.

In his statement of claim, he claimed that the portal had failed to be responsible, accurate, and fair in its reporting.

Tan, a prominent businessman in Penang, filed a similar suit against the publication. Both suits are being jointly heard.

Lim said insinuation the article insinuated that Tan had a privileged relationship with him, so he was able to secure the RM100,000 discount when the car was purchased from Lowe Motors.

“That was not true. (In the article), there was also talk of a casino on Penang Hill, when Penang already said the state won’t allow casinos. 

“There was also talk of a RM1 million donation by Tan to the state voluntary patrol unit, PPS. This was also not true.”

Lim said there was no communication with Tan at all concerning the state’s purchase of the car.

“To insinuate that Tan is ‘Mr Money Bags’ paints a very negative picture of a privileged relationship that cannot be seen in the public eye and that unsavoury things are happening… it insinuates a sense of wrongdoing.”

Lim said the state was open to public scrutiny, but freedom of the press did not mean the freedom to lie.

He also said the publication did not contact him for comment or gave him the right of reply.

Lim said there was also a denial by MACC that the commission was investigating him over the car purchase, adding that he nor his office was ever contacted by the commission about the matter.

“I was never called up over the car. I was surprised that fz.com claimed to have access to the probe by MACC when even the commission said there was not one.

“That raised questions whether the article was right in the first place,” he said.

FZ and Fernandez were represented by counsels Raja Eileen Soraya Raja Aman and Amanda Loh.

Judicial commissioner Abdul Wahab Mohamed fixed Aug 21 to 24 for trial to resume. – May 26, 2017.