Former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak is suing PKR information chief Datuk Seri Shamsul Iskandar Mohd Akin for defamation after the latter failed to respond to a letter of demand from his lawyer.
Najib said he had instructed his lawyer to file the suit in court following Shamsul Iskandar’s failure to retract, correct and apologise for claiming that Najib had stolen RM2.6 billion in 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) funds to support his lifestyle.
“The Hang Tuah Jaya MP and PKR information chief has failed to respond to my lawyer’s letter of demand.
“With this, I have instructed my lawyer to file a defamation suit against Shamsul in court,” Najib wrote on Facebook today.
Shamsul Iskandar, the Hang Tuah Jaya MP, had in February posted on Facebook a graphic showing Najib, former Goldman Sachs partner Tim Leissner and fugitive businessman Low Taek Jho, who are at the centre of the 1MDB scandal.
The graphic allegedly implied that the money of the Malaysian public had been used to fund Najib and his friends’ lavish lifestyles.
Shamsul, also a former deputy primary industries minister, went on to question why there were people who still defended someone who had been deemed a “national embarrassment.”