TMI's Jahabar 'can't wait to go back to work'

“I stink, I need to take a shower and I need lunch,” he told reporters outside the Dang Wangi police headquarters today.

“I’m being photographed and interviewed this time and I can’t wait to go back being a journalist,” he said.

Jahabar also thanked the police for being kind to him while he was detained.

“I still don't know why I was arrested under the Sedition Act. Maybe one day we will know,” he said.

Jahabar and The Edge publisher Ho Kay Tat were arrested by the police yesterday over a report on hudud which was published on the portal last week. They were released on police bail today.

On Monday, TMI managing editor Lionel Morais, features and analysis editor Zulkifli Sulong and Bahasa news editor Amin Iskandar were arrested.

The trio were being investigated under Section 4 of the Sedition Act and Section 233 of the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998.

The March 25 report "Council of Rulers opposes amendments needed to enforce hudud" claims that the Conference of Rulers had rejected an amendment to the federal law for hudud to be implemented in Kelantan.

However, the next day, the Conference of Rulers denied the report, saying the news was false, and lodged a police report on the matter.

Reports were also lodged by UMNO Youth -- one by its chief Khairy Jamaluddin and another by Kedah Youth chief Saiful Hazizy Zainol Abidin -- with the police as well as the Malaysian Communication and Multimedia Commission (MCMC).

An investigation by the commission and the police followed suit.