DAP to sue Utusan for “falsehoods” of phantom “Father Augustus”

The DAP will file a lawsuit against Umno mouthpiece Utusan Malaysia for republishing what it calls the fabricated and defamatory lies of the booklet "The Equity Report (CEC Election Fraud)" which was purportedly written by "Father Augustus Chen".

In a statement, DAP adviser Lim Kit Siang (pic) said the seven-day period for "Father Augustus Chen" to come forward and prove that he wasn't a phantom, had passed.

Lim has now instructed his lawyers to institute legal proceedings against Utusan Malaysia for recycling material from the fictitious booklet written by a fictitious individual.

"Nobody expected the so-called Father Augustus Chen to come forward and claim ownership of the malicious 12-page publication crammed with lies and falsehoods. That is why those who published the contents from the booklet should be prepared to face defamation suits and criminal proceedings."

He slammed Mingguan Malaysia on Sunday for carrying a report which recycled the fictitious and malicious content of the booklet. This in spite of all the denials by DAP on the lies written in the booklet.

"The fictitious 'Father Augustus Chen' has made, among others, two baseless allegations to justify the Registrar of Society and Umno/BN action against the DAP. There isn't a grain of truth in whatever has been written in the booklet," Lim said.

On Sunday, Lim issued a call to arms for all DAP members, describing the situation as a life-and-death struggle for the party following an intense smear campaign instigated by Umno/BN to destroy the party.

He said in the past couple of months, propagandists and cybertroopers employed by Barisan Nasional have launched two phases of assault on the DAP. The first assault was the ridiculous claim of the DAP-financed Red Bean Army comprising 3,000 cybertroopers.

Even more preposterous was the budget cited of between RM100 million to RM1 billion. BN had claimed that the Red Bean Army had been funded by the DAP over the past six years with the sole purpose of character-assassination of BN and Umno leaders.

The second assault was the malicious campaign about electoral fraud in the DAP Central Executive Committee (CEC) polls held in December last year. The booklet of fiction by “Father Augustus Chen” made two major allegations, the first being 753 mostly Indian delegates not being notified of the DAP Congress and the second, was the 543 phantom delegates, mostly from Penang.

Lim said the smear campaign had entered the third phase with Utusan Malaysia and the NST leading the way by reporting and regurgitating fabrications and deceptions. In fact, the battleground has been widened with BN and Umno now also using Chinese and Tamil newspapers to spin their fabricated reports.