SELANGOR Menteri Besar Amirudin Shari has filed a defamation suit against Kedah Menteri Besar Muhammad Sanusi Md Nor over an allegation linking the former and tycoon Vincent Tan in the scandalous Sungai Klang river cleaning project.

Amirudin’s counsel Haijan Omar confirmed that the lawsuit was filed at the Shah Alam High Court yesterday, with copies of the cause papers having been served on the defendant.

The Gombak MP’s legal team had on August 9 served a letter of demand to Sanusi, seeking an apology from the defendant within 48 hours and damages of RM10 million.

Sanusi was alleged to have made the claim involving Amirudin and Tan, and the plan to implement an RM10 billion project in Sungai Klang during the “Jelajah Mega PN Best Sayangi Kedah Sejahtera” speech at Dataran Darul Aman, Jitra, Kedah in the run up to the recent state elections. 

Tan had also filed a similar defamation suit against Sanusi.

Amirudin claimed that Sanusi failed to heed his legal letter to retract the allegation and apologise over the speech made during the state election campaign period on August 2.

The plaintiff claimed that the speech implied, among others, that he had abused his power as Selangor MB by engaging in corrupt practices linked to the Selangor Maritime Gateway Project.

Amirudin claimed the allegation implied that he had engaged in power abuse to cause 242.8ha of state land worth RM10 billion to be given for free to Tan or the businessman’s company, Berjaya Land Bhd.

Amirudin also contended that Sanusi had recklessly uttered the “politically motivated” untrue allegation to “cast the plaintiff in a bad light ahead of the state elections on August 12”.

“The defamatory statements and republications of the defamatory statements resulted in the plaintiff being widely ridiculed by members of the public as ‘cokia’,” Amirudin said over how the speech had purportedly inflicted serious injury on his character and reputation.

The plaintiff is seeking unspecified general, aggravated, and exemplary damages, as well as an injunction to restrain Sanusi from further repeating the allegation. – August 31, 2023.