Najib says Pakatan men will ‘pay the price’ for accusations

(The Malaysian Insider) – Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak today warned Pakatan Rakyat lawmakers against what he said were false reports about him and the Barisan Nasional.

"Whoever makes false reports will be prosecuted, and this includes statutory declarations. They will pay the price," said Najib when asked to comment on the latest reports by two PR state assemblymen in Perak who implicated him in a defection offer.

His warning today was the harshest statement yet from Najib in response to allegations of bribing lawmakers to defect to BN.

Yesterday DAP's Keshvinder Singh and PKR legislator Abdul Yunus Jamsari lodged a report with the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission alleging that they were offered up to RM20 million to defect to BN.

"It is up to MACC. Let the MACC handle it. We didn't do that. They just made up the story," said Najib.

The Umno deputy president, who is also the party's Perak chairman, has been repeatedly accused of engineering the defections of PR lawmakers that led to the downfall of the state government.

At the height of the Perak crisis a local PKR leader made a statutory declaration, saying that Najib made an offer of RM50 million just after the March 8 general election to buy over at least two PR assemblymen to pave the way for the formation of a BN government.

The prime minister-designate was also accused by PKR leaders of physically threatening PR reps to defect.