Faced with lawsuit, blogger claims Twitter account hacked in racial attack against Kit Siang

(Malay Mail Online) – A blogger has denied posting a tweet that accused Lim Kit Siang of sparking the May 13, 1969 race riots after the DAP parliamentary leader threatened to sue him for defamation.

Syed Akbar Ali, who blogs under the name OutSyed The Box, said yesterday that he has never used Twitter though he set up an account on the social networking site “some time ago”.

“I must say quite simply that I have never tweeted anything about you. Period,” Syed Akbar wrote on his blog.

“I think someone has either created a fake account using my name, hacked my inactive Twitter account, cloned it or whatever and then used it to say all those things about you,” he added.

Lim said yesterday that he would sue Syed Akbar for allegedly tweeting a graphic that called the DAP veteran “Bapa 13 Mei” (Father of May 13) and depicted him in the garb favoured by the late China leader, Mao Tse Tung.

The Gelang Patah MP also listed down the allegedly defamatory “anti-Malay” statements and slogans in the graphic that were attributed to him.

The list of 10 remarks featured in the graphic was indicated as having allegedly been made on May 11 and 12, 1969 in areas within Kuala Lumpur.

But Lim denied ever making these statements, repeating his previous insistence that he was outside of Kuala Lumpur from May 11 to May 13, 1969.

Syed Akbar said in response he was aware that Lim was not in the capital city at that period of time.

“If I remember it correctly you were in Sabah, where the Special Branch arrested you at the airport. I have read your profile from your own writings. So I am well aware that you were not in Kuala Lumpur on those dates that you mention,” said the blogger.

When contacted, Lim told Malay Mail Online: “Let my lawyers handle it”.

Lim’s lawyer Gobind Singh Deo said a police report was lodged today at Jalan Tun HS Lee.

“We will also write officially to the blogger. He should respond to our letter and we will take it from there,” Gobind told Malay Mail Online.

“Our position is that the contents of the article are false and quite clearly criminally offensive,” he added.

Hundreds of Malaysians are believed to have died during the May 13, 1969 clashes between the Malays and the Chinese. Although ostensibly triggered by the results of Election 1969, it was rooted in ethnic tensions between the two communities.