Utusan given 48 hours to answer 'Who is Father Augustus?'

Utusan Malaysia has been given 48 hours to respond to letter of demand sent today by the DAP in regards to two ‘defamatory’ articles in regards to the party’s central executive committee (CEC) elections.

DAP legal bureau chief Gobind Singh Deo told reporters today that the legal notices were sent to Utusan Melayu (M) Bhd, editor Zukifli Jalil and journalist Kasthuri Jeevendran.

“We give Utusan an opportunity to explain their claims, if not we are forced to go to court,” the Puchong MP told reporters today.

The first article in contention was published in Mingguan Malaysia on Aug 18. Gobind said that the article, ‘Kit Siang manipulasi pemilihan CEC? (Kit Siang manipulated the CEC polls?)’, contained various ‘falsehoods’.

The core complaint on the article was the re-publishing of claims from a booklet ‘The Equity Report (CEC election fraud)’, purportedly written by one ‘Father Augustus Chen’. DAP has vehemently denied this person’s existence.

“If you want to republish information, you have to verify that information. We ask Utusan who is Father Augustus Chen? Have they met him? Have they verified his claims?” he said, insisting that the claims have no basis.

The booklet had claimed that DAP advisor Lim Kit Siang had rose in his ranks by manipulating the CEC elections, a claim Gobind said was “very serious”.

The other article, ‘Akhirnya “drama” dihentikan’(At last the drama ends), published on Aug 17 alleged that party secretary-general were refusing to hold the CEC re-election.

"It is also very serious to insinuate that Guan Eng has refused to hold because he knew of the truth of these claims…this insinuates that he is a leader who lied,” said Gobind.

Gobind said that the repeated claim that there were 753 delegates were not given notice over the election and there were 547 phantom voters were both false.

The DAP leadership would at its headquarters tomorrow discuss details of the CEC re-election.