Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng has told his lawyers to initiate legal action against English language daily New Straits Times for failing to apologise to him for a report saying he had exposed the country's top secrets to the Singapore government.

forum pru13 undi siapa jadi penentu 131211 lim guan eng 03 Lim ( left ) said the Umno-linked newspaper had issued apologies to two individuals implicated with him - Malaysia Airlines board member Mohamad Azman Yahya and businessman Kalimullah Hassan.

The three of them had attended a dinner function with Singapore officials in August.

"However, NST failed to apologise to me. Why?" he queried at a press conference today.

'This shows how evil and bad hearted the newspaper is. This shows how malicious it is to undermine me just because of politics, because it is an Umno-linked newspaper," he added.

Perkasa questions loyalty

In October, the NST published a report quoting Perkasa as questioning the motive behind the dinner attended by the trio in August with senior leaders of Singapore's People's Action Party (PAP).

Perkasa information chief Ruslan Kasim had then urged the three to clear the air over the matter in the interest of the country.

"If it is true, we would like to know what was discussed during the dinner and whether it was related to our country's top secrets," Ruslan had said in a statement.

Azman was also asked to reveal whether Kalimullah had previously arranged several meetings between DAP and PAP as Malaysians have the right to question where their loyalty was.

Ruslan also warned Malaysians against becoming foreign tools or agents to betray their own country.

Guan Eng says NST lies

Lim recently won a defamation suit against another Umno-linked newspaper, Utusan Malaysia , which was found to have defamed him by making him out to be a racist and anti-Islam.

On the Singapore allegations, the trio had vehemently denied the allegations in the report, while Lim had said he was not surprised as the newspaper often "published lies" about him.

The DAP secretary general said he was a "subject of a lynching exercise by NST".

"This (report) is defamatory and it questions our loyalty. NST does not stand for ‘ New Straits Times '. It stands for a newspaper that ‘never speaks truth'," Lim had said.

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