KUALA LUMPUR, April 14 — Raja Petra Kamarudin has defended his interview aired with TV3, saying that it will renew focus on allegations surrounding the Altantuya Shariibuu murder.
He also explained that he was repeating his reports, and that his June 18, 2008 sworn statement was actually against a military intelligence officer and not Datuk Seri Najib Razak and his wife Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor.
“I realise the danger of recorded interviews as opposed to live shows like the TV1 Blog programme. But I know I can handle even the toughest interviews.
“After all, what I would be saying is going to be the truth anyway. So why worry? Certainly they are going to spin it but then that is a risk I would have to take,” the Malaysia Today news portal editor wrote in the website today.
The pro-government TV3 ran excerpts of the hour-long interview last night, touching a firestorm of comments questioning the timing ahead of the Sarawak election this weekend.
TV3 said it will run another part of the interview in its prime-time Buletin Utama news programme tonight.
“Undoubtedly, a storm is going to be created. I knew that. But maybe I need that storm so that the story of my statutory declaration can be brought back to focus and corrected.
“Somehow, the statutory declaration I signed and what I actually said in that statutory declaration has been lost. And it has been lost because the focus is on my so-called allegation rather than what I actually said in the statutory declaration,” Raja Petra (picture)said.
The blogger was interviewed in Perth during his tour of Australia last month after spending nearly two years in the United Kingdom which he fled to avoid court trials for defamation. All cases against him have been dropped.
Raja Petra also stressed he did not accuse Rosmah or two army officers were at the scene of Altantuya’s murder in late 2007.
“Most seem to not understand that I did not make any allegation against Rosmah or the two Lt-Kols. That was not what my statutory declaration said.
“I made an allegation against a third Lt-Kol. And this third Lt-Kol is Lt-Kol Azmi Zainal Abidin, the number two in the special branch of the military intelligence,” he wrote.
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