Rosli Dahlan: Allegations against me false

 

I refer to an article by P Gunasegaram on Feb 2. This article is defamatory of me and calculated to smear and damage my firm and my work as a lawyer. 

The writer should know that C4 Center had made similar allegations previously and had admitted that the allegations are false and published an unqualified, unequivocal, and unreserved public apology. This is the apology verbatim:

Apology by C4 CENTER to lawyer Rosli Dahlan

C4 Center, an NGO that combats corruption and cronyism and an advocate of a clean, competent governance system, hereby makes this unreserved, unequivocal, and unconditional apology to lawyer Rosli Dahlan in respect of a posting made on C4 Center’s website, Facebook, and Twitter on 25.3.2021 (“the Posts”). We truly regret the making of the posts.

We deeply apologise that our posts had wrongly, unfairly, and seriously injured Rosli Dahlan’s character, integrity, credit, and reputation and could well have eroded the confidence of the public in him. We accept that our posts have also brought him into public scandal, odium, contempt, and disrepute exposing him to hatred and ridicule and lowering him in the estimation of the public.

We admit the falsity of the said posts and acknowledge their effects and upon his demand on 29.3.2021, we immediately removed the said posts from our website, Facebook, and Twitter accounts. We acknowledge that the said false posts have taken a life of their own and had been reproduced, republished, reposted, retweeted, and shared causing them to go viral on various other platforms.

We hereby express our deep remorse for our wrongful conduct and the damage caused to Lawyer Rosli Dahlan. To further vindicate the damage that we have caused to him, we hereby make the following statements:

a) That the said posts were plainly highly defamatory, false, and baseless;

b) That we had failed to verify the said posts;

c) That there was no basis to allege that Rosli Dahlan had illegally, unlawfully, unjustly, and unduly profited by pocketing monies in connection with the 1MDB asset recovery efforts;

d) That there was no basis to allege or imply that Rosli Dahlan had defrauded the Malaysian public by pocketing monies intended to settle 1MDB’s liabilities.

We further state that we truly regret that we have stained the reputation of Rosli Dahlan who by all accounts is an honest and morally upright citizen, and has a good reputation for being a highly professional and ethical lawyer who strives to maintain a high standard of transparency, integrity, and virtue.

C4 Center deeply regrets the dishonour that we had caused him, his family, and his law firm and we hereby wholeheartedly denounce the said Posts in their entirety. For this C4 Center and its directors sincerely apologise to Rosli Dahlan.

Cynthia Gabriel

Director of C4 Center

For and on behalf of all the Directors of C4 Center

3. Gunasegaram's suggestion on the US$500 million payment to Bersatu is absolutely false. It is malicious of him to repeat that falsehood and fan it in a way to smear my name. Gunasegaram is a journalist. It is irresponsible and unethical journalism to write in a false and sensational manner. I would expect him to do the decent thing to retract and apologise to me.

Editor’s note: Gunasegaram’s response: “I did not make those allegations. And whatever I said in terms of the settlement was fair comment in a case of great public importance.”

- Mkini