On Oct 3, former MCA chief Ling Liong Sik was reported to have joined the insistent-but-stubbornly-ignored urging for Najib Abdul Razak to make himself scarce for having stolen public funds. The implied sum is, as we all know, US$681 million plus RM42 million. Or, the celebrated RM2縷6 billion.

No, Ling did not utter the word ‘allege/alleged’. So, it is absent above.

On Oct 5, a report had it that Najib threatened to sue Ling if the latter did not within seven days retract his statement, apologise, and agree to pay compensation for having smeared the former's reputation.

If you asked me, I’m not too sure if there was any reputation to have been smeared in the first place. We are talking about positive reputation, of course. In any case, it would be silly to smear a reputation that is already ill.

Ling received a letter of demand from Najib’s lawyers the next day, Oct 6.

Ling did not waste time. The very next day, he was reported to have said he was not going to do anything of the sort that Najib has demanded, that he was prepared to be sued and to see Najib in court. He even issued a press statement to the effect.

Now, if you were Najib, you would get your lawyers to go ahead and do the necessary, wouldn’t you?

But, no. Najib’s lawyers said they would wait for Ling’s official reply before deciding what to do next.

If Najib is sure of his case, why wait?

Or, was it all just a bluff? and now that Ling has called his bluff, he’s looking for a way to extricate himself out of the predicament that he has created for himself?

Ling ought to send a written reply. Because if he does not, Najib can turn around and say he cannot take any further action in the absence of such a response. So will Ling please do that.

I repeat, So will Ling please do that.

To we sans legal training, Ling has merely echoed what Mahathir Mohamad has said, and, therefore, really has nothing to answer. There are lawyers subscribing to this portal, but I can’t recall any having commented that he has.

But let us suppose that the court requires of Ling to substantiate his statement or else be found guilty of defamation. On the face of it, Ling may be supposed to find it hard to do that.

No, it would not be hard in the normal sense we take the word to mean. It would be hard only in the sense that it would involve lots of work in ferreting out information and documents. Hard, but not impossible.

And Ling is not exactly a pauper that he can’t afford to hire investigators to unearth the ammunition he needs to blast Najib out of the courtroom.

Besides, we also can’t tell what he already knows.

And nor does Najib. We can be sure of that.

I repeat, So will Ling please, please send a written reply.