Date:05/01/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/01/05/stories/2008010556641400.htm

International

Denies LTTE link, sues Malaysia

P. S. Suryanarayana

SINGAPORE: P. Uthayakumar, detained leader of the Hindu Rights Action Force, on Friday filed a defamation suit against Malaysian authorities for having portrayed him as an activist with links to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

The suit was filed at the High Court in Kuala Lumpur through a law firm, while Hindraf Chairman P. Waytha Moorthy vowed to “continue” its “peaceful struggle for the rights of the minority [ethnic] Indians” in Malaysia.

Mr. Waytha Moorthy, now camping in London, told The Hindu over the telephone that the Hindraf struggle would “continue to the end.” He was seeking to set the record straight after he was quoted in some sections of the media as having said the Hindraf was fighting a losing battle that might be called off soon.

Mr. Uthayakumar, who was arrested along with four other Hindraf leaders under Malaysia’s tough Internal Security Act (ISA) on December 13 last year, sought damages to the tune of 100 million Malaysian ringgit. Mr. Waytha Moorthy clarified, over the telephone, that Mr. Uthaykumar had filed the suit “only for himself” and not on behalf of Hindraf. The two are brothers.

As Legal Adviser to Hindraf, Mr. Uthayakumar was representing several “supporters” of the group in a case of alleged rioting, when Attorney-General Abdul Gani Patail first spoke of a suspected LTTE link. The Sessions Court judge did not record that submission by the Attorney-General.

Noting that the judge had “expunged” the remark, Mr. Uthayakumar told The Hindu from Kuala Lumpur in early December that Hindraf had never fashioned links with the LTTE.

In his suit now, he cited not only the Attorney-General but also Inspector-General of Police Musa Hassan and the Malaysian government for “defaming” him as a “terrorist” intending to overthrow it. Mr. Uthayakumar had, before his detention without any charges, written a letter asking for apologies from the authorities.

Meanwhile, Mr. Waytha Moorthy said the “people power” of Malaysian Indians was now in focus. However, “the ultimate power” lay in the hands of the government, and the “reality” was that the Malaysian Indians “cannot form a government to change [their] situation.” It was, therefore, the “responsibility” of the Malaysian government to “make the necessary changes in the interest of the minority [ethnic] Indian community.”

He said Hindraf would yet organise “various peaceful protests throughout the country to highlight the plight of the 70 per cent poor underclass Malaysian Indian society” A Malaysian Sessions Court agreed to the prosecution’s plea for a collective trial of 54 persons charged on various counts for having participated in the Hindraf’s November 25 rally in Kuala Lumpur.