PENANG Chief Minister Chow Kon Yeow has filed a defamation suit against Tan Kok Ping, the life honourary president of the Penang Chinese Chamber of Commerce (PCCC) regarding the latter’s remarks regarding a state land sale last year.

Chow said he decided to pursue legal action due to Tan’s failure to apologise or retract his statements.

The defamation suit includes a sealed copy of the writ and statement of claim, which will be served on Tan for the defamatory remarks made during a press conference organised by the PCCC on October 18 last year.

According to Chow, Tan had used his capacity to call for the press conference in respect of a joint development agreement dated September 27 last year for a proposed development project between Penang Development Corporation (PDC) and Umech Land Sdn Bhd.

“Even though PDC had announced the deal had been dropped on October 16, last year, Tan deliberately made slanderous remarks in Mandarin against me during the press conference to attack my character, credibility, competency and capability as the chief minister and as the PDC chairman,” he said.

Chow claimed that the slanderous statements were eventually printed and published in, among others, several prominent Chinese-language newspapers.

He said the suit has been fixed for case management at the Penang High Court on January 24.

Until press time, attempts by Bernama to reach Tan for comments were futile.

In October last year, the Penang executive council unanimously decided that Chow should initiate legal proceedings against Tan for his statements which humiliated and degraded the chief minister.

It was reported last year that Tan had accused Chow of being “incompetent” for evading questions about the controversial sale of land owned by the PDC in Byram to UMECH Land Sdn Bhd. – Bernama, January 4, 2024.