Interpol help sought to arrest RPK: Bukit Aman

(Bernama) – Bukit Aman CID chief Bakri Zinin said Malaysian police would seek the cooperation of Interpol and arrest fugitive blogger Raja Petra Kamarudin according to the legal procedures.

“The police have a warrant of arrest on him issued by the court, so we have the power to arrest him anytime and anywhere,” he said when contacted by Bernama.

Bakri said police had identified Raja Petra’s hiding place but declined to reveal more.

He said police would soon record statements from individuals with information on Raja Petra, including Federal Territory PKR chief Zaid Ibrahim who was linked to Raja Petra.

The statements were necessary for a thorough investigation into the funding of the fugitive blogger’s stay in London, he added.

Bakri was earlier asked to comment on the statement by Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Mohamed Nazri Aziz that the government had proof that Raja Petra was being sponsored by PKR.

Raja Petra fled the country after two warrants on arrest were issued on him for failing to appear in court on April 23 and May 23, to answer to a charge of writing and posting a seditious and defamatory article on the prime minister’s wife Rosmah Mansor on the Malaysia Today website.

Meanwhile, articles written by the blogger are only half truths with the rest made up by him, Deputy International Trade and Industry Minister Mukhriz Mahathir said.

He said Raja Petra, often known as RPK, admitted to that when they met several years ago.

“Once I spoke to him about some reporting he did. I asked him, ‘where did you get the facts?’ and he flippantly said that his articles were only 40 per cent facts and the rest were made up by him,” Mukhriz told reporters after officiating at the Jerlun Adventure Kayak Race (AKAR) promotion drive in Kuala Lumpur today.

Due to that, Mukhriz assumed the other articles written by Raja Petra were the same.

Mukhriz, who is Jerlun MP, also believed that the blogger was being funded by some individuals or an organisation, and that PKR had something to do with him.

“As far as I know, going by the way he goes about, RPK is a simple man, but for him to afford an apartment for so many months now in London tells me there must be a source of funding somewhere,” he said.