Amirudin sues Sanusi for defamation
The Selangor menteri besar takes his opposite number to court, claiming RM10 million for Sungai Klang river cleaning project scandal allegations.
(FMT) – Selangor menteri besar Amirudin Shari has sued his opposite number in Kedah, Sanusi Nor, for defamation after Sanusi alleged Amirudin was involved in a controversy linked to the Sungai Klang river cleaning project.
According to documents released yesterday, Amirudin filed a defamation suit against Sanusi in the High Court at Shah Alam, after Sanusi – during Perikatan Nasional’s “Jelajah Mega PN Best Sayangi Kedah Sejahtera” ceramah in Jitra on Aug 2 – claimed that Amirudin would give 600ha of land to businessman Vincent Tan, who allegedly intended to develop a RM10 billion project.
Amirudin had issued Sanusi with a letter of demand on Aug 9, insisting on an apology within 48 hours and RM10 million in damages.
Meanwhile, Tan filed a similar suit against Sanusi.
His lawyers issued a letter of demand seeking Sanusi’s apology as well as RM200 million in damages.
Amirudin claimed the allegation implied that he had engaged in abuse of power to facilitate 242.8ha of state land worth RM10 billion to be given for free to Tan’s company, Berjaya Land Berhad.
He also contended that Sanusi recklessly uttered the “politically motivated” untrue allegation to “cast the plaintiff (Amirudin) in a bad light ahead of the state elections on Aug 12”.
Previously, Amirudin said Sanusi seemed “extremely desperate” to shift the public’s focus from his alleged links to illegal rare earth elements (REE) mining in Kedah by making claims about Berjaya Group.
Earlier this month, home minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail produced a photograph of Sanusi with a Chinese national he claimed was brought in by MBI Kedah to mine REE.
In response, Sanusi said one of the Chinese nationals had dealings with MBI Kedah and an agreement to extract REE before he took office.
He also claimed Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim had previously introduced Indonesian tycoon Riza Chalid to the prospect of mining REE in Kedah.
He said Anwar and the tycoon had visited Kedah a few weeks before the state assembly was dissolved in June.
However, Anwar said his meeting with Riza had nothing to do with the REE mining business.
