Nurul Izzah to be freed after statement taken, says IGP

PKR's Lembah Pantai MP Nurul Izzah Anwar with her lawyer and fellow PKR lawmaker R. Sivarasa outside the Dang Wangi police station today, before she was detained by police. – The Malaysian Insider pic by Najjua Zulkefli, March 16, 2015.Lembah Pantai MP Nurul Izzah Anwar will be released after her statement is recorded over remarks she made at the #KitaLawan rally on March 7, police said tonight.

Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar (pic) said the PKR vice-president had been arrested under the Sedition Act for her remarks at the rally, and not for a speech made in Parliament.

"Lembah Pantai MP Nurul Izzah Anwar has been arrested under the Sedition Act to assist the police into the investigation of the Kita Lawan rally and for making contemptuous remarks that those in the judiciary system had sold their souls to the devil.

"She will be released once her statement has been recorded," he said in a two-paragraph statement posted on the police Facebook page.

Nurul Izzah is a two-term lawmaker and the eldest daughter of opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, who is serving a five-year jail sentence for sodomy. Her mother is PKR president Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail.

She had gone to the Dang Wangi police station this afternoon to have her statement recorded when police arrested her under the colonial-era sedition law.

The mother-of-two is being held at the Jinjang police station lock-up where more than 300 people have gathered tonight against her overnight detention over the past few hours.

In an immediate response, PKR Youth deputy chief Fahmi Fadzil disputed Khalid's statement, saying that Nurul Izzah's arrest sheet did not contain references to the #KitaLawan rally on March 7.

"Really now, TS Khalid? Well, what you're saying is different from the arrest sheet I saw Nurul Izzah sign.

"The sheet says only for sedition, nothing to do with #KitaLawan. So what are you talking, KBAB?," he wrote in a Facebook posting, referring to Khalid by his initials used in the police chief's Twitter account.

Fahmi, who is also PKR communications chief, had alerted the media and supporters of Nurul Izzah's arrest after she turned up at the Dang Wangi police station earlier in the day.

- TMI