Ex-top cop wins consent judgment against three media groups

Former Commercial Crimes Investigation Department (CCID) director Ramli Yusof has today obtained a consent judgment at the Kuala Lumpur High Court against three media organisations, for a defamation suit he filed regarding the ‘Copgate’ affair.

The judgment was recorded by Justice Abu Bakar Jais in his chambers today.

The consent judgment was recorded against The Star (M) Bhd, New Straits Times Press (M) Bhd and Borneo Post.

With this, two of the newspapers have agreed to apologise via a letter to Ramli, namely The Star and Borneo Post.

In addition, The Star is required to pay RM60,000 in total costs besides the apology, Borneo Post RM20,000 with the apology, while NSTP is imposed RM120,000 costs.

The three media organisations were represented by Bhag Singh, while lawyer Harvinderjeet Singh appeared for Ramli. Other terms of settlement were not disclosed.

Ramli also filed a suit against Umno publication Utusan Malaysia which had apologised earlier.

He filed the joint suit in 2013, against the publishers of the New Straits Times, The Star, Berita Harian, Utusan Malaysia, Daily Express and Borneo Post .

Ramli, who was number three in the police force, alleged that the articles in the newspapers in 2007 mentioned a senior police officer having amassed RM27 million in assets and who was asked to declare his assets, which was understood to refer to him.

This is because there were no other officers, Ramli said, who were being investigated for abuse of power and failing to declare assets at that time.

Ramli claimed those articles implied that he was a corrupt officer, he had failed to declare his assets, he allegedly amassed RM27 million in wealth, gathered it through illegal means and that he had abused his power.

He claimed one of the articles, which originated in Sabah, pitted him as an infamous leader of the underworld.

The former top cop had alleged that the then-inspector-general of police (IGP) Musa Hassan, and former attorney-general Abdul Gani Patail had conspired to fix him up by alleging that an underworld figure bribed him following the CCID action against kingpin Goh Cheng Poh @ Tengku Goh in what is now known as the Copgate affair.

Ramli along with his then-lawyer Rosli Dahlan have a pending suit against Musa, Gani and the Malaysia Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC).- Mkini