By Dorcas Ting
KUCHING, Oct 12: In the defamation suit by Sarawak Federation of Chinese Associations president Dato Richard Wee over DAP’s Michael Kong’s Facebook post on July 21, 2020, Michael Kong stressed that his statement was made to point out the business affiliation between the plaintiff and Haji Ibrahim Baki and to ask the plaintiff to be transparent about his business associations.
Kong said his statement had never alleged that the plaintiff had used any elites of the Sarawak State Government to procure any business or contracts, rightly or wrongly.
Kong, who is the defendant of the case, was called as one of the witnesses during the cross-examination conducted by the plaintiff’s counsel, Shankar Ram.
Kong told the Court the word “elite” used in the Facebook post refers to a group of people who have the financial means to afford private charters flights, which is one of the notable aviation business of regional charter airline Layang-Layang Aerospace Sdn Bhd. The word “elite first” is an attribution to GPS, and not the plaintiff.
“If we see the whole sentence where the word ‘elite first’ appears, I started the sentence with ‘In Sarawak, GPS cries the loudest… claiming they are ‘Sarawak First’ when in truth, they carry an ‘Elite First’ mentality.”
During the cross-examination yesterday evening, Kong stressed that his commentary in the alleged defamatory Facebook post was based on documents he obtained from Hubline Berhad and it was never in his allegation that the plaintiff had procured contracts for Layang-Layang or Hubline from the Sarawak government.
He said he never claimed or asserted that there was any corrupt practice or connection between the plaintiff and others in his statement.
He said in his alleged defamatory Facebook post, merely stated that the plaintiff’s company can count on the Sarawak State government as a potential customer because Hubline Berhad’s annual reports have already clearly stated that Layang-Layang does work for electricity supply poles inspection.
“As for the part where I stated that the plaintiff can count on elites as potential customers, Hubline Berhad annual reports also clearly stated that they do private charters within Bintulu, Miri and Kuching.”
Kong also disagreed with the allegation that one of the statements in the post was aimed at inciting Chinese hatred against Richard Wee.
He said, it is clear from the statement that he merely asked the plaintiff to be open and transparent in respect of his business interests with the current GPS government.
“By issuing such a statement, I have made it clear that it was fine if the plaintiff wanted to continue to be a business associate of Ibrahim Baki, then Deputy Secretary General of PBB, provided that any such association be made known to the public before the plaintiff make any political statement or stance.”
Wee was represented by Counsels Shakar Ram, Yu Ying Ying and Russel Lim whereas Kong was represented by Counsels Chong Siew Chiang, Chong Chieng Jen and Sim Kiat Leng. — DayakDaily
