Jeffery: Mutalib’s death a great loss

He was a rare fighter for justice for Sabahans although he was a Peninsular Malaysian, says the Sabah STAR chief.

KOTA KINBALU: The death of Mutalib MD or Abdul Mutalib bin Abdul Daud is a great loss in the long fight for justice in Sabah, said Bingkor assemblyman Dr Jeffrey Kitingan.

In a statement to pay tribute to Mutalib, Jeffrey, who is also the STAR Sabah chairman said he was shaken and saddened by Mutalib’s sudden death due to stroke on June 29.

According to Mutalib’s wife, he developed a sudden breathing problem and collapsed.

“He was a rare fighter for justice for Sabahans although he was a Peninsular Malaysian.

“Being a fearless writer exposing misdeeds such as the infamous Project IC, he became a tireless journalist vigilante who struck fear into the hearts of corrupted leaders.

“He will never be forgotten as the writer of the book IC Palsu Merampas Hak Anak Sabah, and IC Projek Agenda Tersembunyi Mahathir, among others,” he said.

Jeffrey also admired Mutalib’s capabilities as a writer-publisher entrepreneur, surviving very well with various writing and publishing projects, including the maintenance of his highly popular Sabahkini.net news portal.

“He founded the Sabahkini.net news portal which had been responsible for the exposes of so many misdeeds of those in power. He was once offered RM2.5mil by a certain party to take over the portal, but he declined because the fight for justice was more important to him than mere money,” Jeffrey added.

“Mutalib had also endured a lot of threats and physical assaults from proxies of politicians who didn’t like his bravado in exposing the politicians’ corrupt ways.

“He was scheduled to testify before the RCI this week. Now we only have his books to tell us the truth.

“We love his work, but his efforts have been cut short. We pray that other courageous fighters for justice will step forward, but we also fear that there may never be another one like him,” he said.

Mutalib was also scheduled to attend a school reunion of former schoolmates from SMK Bandaraya (formerly called SMK Menggatal) at a hotel here on June 30, but it was immediately cancelled by the organisers upon hearing of his death.