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PETALING JAYA: The rights group Lawyers for Liberty (LFL) has criticized the Singapore Ministry of the Interior (MHA) for stating that its civil suit against its Minister K Shanmugam was “unfounded”.
LFL had filed a civil lawsuit against Shanmugam in the Kuala Lumpur High Court for a directive issued on his complaint of brutal methods of extralegal execution in Singapore’s Changi Prison.
The directive from Singapore’s Protection Against Online Tampering and Falsehood Act (Pofma) office was to issue a “correction order” against LFL for their claim.
In a statement yesterday, MHA described the lawsuit as “unfounded” as it had been dismissed by the Superior Court.
But LFL adviser N Surendran said the statement was “incorrect and irresponsible” and was intended to misrepresent to the people of Malaysia and Singapore what actually happened in court.
“LFL’s civil suit had simply expired because Shanmugam had not yet been served. It was not ‘crossed out’ by the Kuala Lumpur High Court in the manner alleged by the Singapore authorities, ”Surendran said.
He said Singapore’s attorney general had refused in writing on February 13 to accept service of court documents.
He said the Kuala Lumpur High Court had allowed LFL to re-file its claim against Shanmugam on September 21. “Which shows that the claim is far from unfounded.”
“We note that Singapore deliberately failed to mention this important fact in its press release.”
Following the resubmission of the lawsuit, Surendran said, the LFL will “vigorously” pursue the matter to protect Malaysians’ freedom of expression against foreign countries.
On MHA’s statement that the LFL had failed to substantiate its claim of brutal methods of execution at Changi Prison, he said that they had repeatedly asked Singapore to grant the complainant, a former prison official, immunity from prosecution.
“But Singapore has refused to grant immunity to allow this whistleblower to testify in Singapore courts,” he said.
Surendran added that Singapore’s “relentless attacks” on the LFL were akin to “shooting the messenger.”
