Lawyer: Raja Petra can be extradited to face charges here
PETALING JAYA: Attorney-General Mohamed Apandi Ali can seek the assistance of the British public prosecutor to extradite fugitive blogger Raja Petra Kamarudin to face criminal charges here, a lawyer said.
S N Nair said Raja Petra had committed cyber law crimes of both nations by posting offensive, malicious or false articles on Apandi and several other personalities.
“The public prosecutor could accede to the request as both nations have similar legal provisions to comply with extradition rules,” said Nair, a former policeman involved in extradition matters.
Nair said Raja Petra had committed an offence under the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Act which provided a maximum fine of RM50,000, or imprisonment up to a year, or both, upon conviction.
He said the blogger, who is said to be living in the United Kingdom, also breached the Malicious Communications Act 1988 and Communications Act 2003 of that country.
“This opens the door further to the AG to make another report in London for their authorities to act against Raja Petra,” he said.
Nair said it was also improper for Raja Petra to drag the Sultan of Johor into the fray.
In any event, in his latest “exposure”, Nair said there seemed to be too much of a disconnect.
“It makes no sense why three most senior justices are involved as, to them, it matters not who the AG is in so far as the Judiciary is concerned,” he said.
He said judges in general were prohibited from going to the press to defend themselves and as such it was for lawyers and the Bar Council to come to their defence on a matter of principle.
On Monday, retired judge Gopal Sri Ram urged Apandi to lodge a police report for criminal defamation following two articles titled “Strong Rumours Surrounding the AG: Part 1 and Part 2” published in Raja Petra’s Malaysia Today blog on Friday and Sunday.
In the article on Friday, he claimed there was a meeting in 2015 between then chief justice Arifin Zakaria, current chief justice Raus Shariff and current Court of Appeal president Zulkefli Ahmad Makinudin with Prime Minister Najib Razak.
He claimed the meeting was about an alleged plot by then attorney-general Abdul Gani Patail with some others to bring down the government through investigations on 1MDB and its former subsidiary, SRC International.
Raja Petra also alleged that Apandi had demanded RM4 million from a Chinese businessman, identified as a “business partner” of the Sultan of Johor, on a case he had won.
Apandi, who has denied the allegations of corruption contained in the first article, said he intended to sue the writer “till kingdom come”.
Source : Free Malaysia Today