Sivarasa: We know who the hidden hand behind Rahimi is

Latheefa and Sivarasa

Malaysia Chronicle

PKR vice president Sivarasa Rasiah said the party knows who “the hidden hand” is behind Rahimi Osman, who a day ago had accused lawyers Latheefa Koya and Saiful Izham Ramli of forcing him to sign two statutory declarations implicating Prime Minister Najib Rosmah and his wife Rosmah Mansor in the sodomy trial against Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim.

“We will reveal the second chapter in the coming weeks. The question now is why have the statutory declarations suddenly been referred to after two and a half years? There are other motives here. It is not about the declarations but to tarnish the image of Anwar and legal team,” Sivarasa said.

Sivarasa, who is also Anwar’s lawyer, said the disputed statutory declarations would not affect the sodomy trial or Anwar’s position.

“It is irrelevant to the trial after the statement made to the police,” Siva told reporters at a joint press conference with Latheefa, Saiful and N Surendran at party headquarters on Thursday.

Criminal defamation

Rahimi had lodged a police report on Wednesday, claiming that he was made to sign under duress the two statutory declarations on June 28, 2008. However, both Latheefa and Saiful have denied his allegation and will sue him for criminal defamation unless he treacts his statement.

Latheefa had also pointed that it was nonsensical that they would force Rahimi as he had five days earlier on June 23, 2008, already lodged the same information in a police report.

Furthermore, Najib has already admitted he met sodomy complainant Saiful Bukhari Azlan before Saiful lodged his police complaint against Anwar. Najib had initially denied meeting Saiful.

“Rahimi’s allegations that the statutory declarations were amended to include the names of Datuk Seri Najib Razak and Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor without his consent is completely untrue and without any credibility at all," Latheefa said.

“This is because in his own statement given to the police at [Bukit Aman] on July 23, 2008 in the afternoon, he has confirmed that he knew that Saiful (Bukhari Azlan) had met Najib and Rosmah.”