A Penang government aide has refuted the claim that he had called state Umno Youth head Norman Dhalan a ‘bastard’ yesterday.

Satees Muniandy, who is assistant to Deputy Chief Minister II P Ramasamy, was referring to a text-message that is in circulation.

It accuses him and Komtar assemblyperson Ng Wei Aik of ‘fighting fire with fire’, resulting in Pakatan Rakyat’s supporters feeling slighted after a protest outside the state assembly building yesterday.

The message reads: ‘SAD BUT TRUE: Malays among OUR side not happy when Wei Aik tengking demo guy after been provoke and most sad is when PA Prof Rama called them bastard in front of e’body. Api di lawan api - people are watching. From our Malay supporter’.

At a press co NONE nference today, Satees said it was ironical that he and Ng have been accused of being ‘rough’ when it was Umno Youth and protestors who had acted in a “wild and violent” manner.

“How could I have said that word when I was one of the negotiators who had brought the protestors’ representatives into the state assembly area to meet with us,” he said.

“I am accused of calling Norman a ‘bastard’ and Ng is accused of rebuking the protestors when all he said was: ‘Please do not hina (denigrate) the state assembly’.”

Yesterday, Satees and Rezal Husairi Md Zaki, an aide to Deputy Chief Minister I Mansor Othman, had refused to accept money that senior citizens were reportedly returning through Norman. The cash had been disbursed under the state’s senior citizens appreciation awards .

Norman, who was among the protestors, had been allowed in to meet with Satees and Rezal, although he had intended to hand over the money directly to Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng.

On failing to meet Lim, he had asked for Mansor, or state exco for religious affairs and Batu Maung assemblyperson Abdul Malik Abul Kassim, but they refused to see him.

NONE A minor skirmish erupted between an upset Norman, Satees and Rezal. It ended with Norman being escorted out of the state assembly compound with the plastic bag of cash amounting to RM23,700.

Satees claimed that, during the encounter, Norman had shoved him aside by pushing him on the chest. However, he claimed to have maintained his calm and to have refrained from retaliating.

He explained that he and Rezal could not accept the cash from Norman because they did not know the source of the money, as it was not accompanied with a name list.

“We didn’t know what money was being returned - could it be corruption money or stolen money? We did not want to take it without proper accounting....,” he said.

‘Threatening words’

Ng, who was at the press conference, showed a video recording of the rally, described it as demo goyang to illustrate how the main gate had been shaken so vigorously that it was in danger of collapse.

The footage showed that one of the protestors had chained himself to the gate while shaking it aggressively, crying out pro-Malay land rights and anti-Lim slogans.

NONE Ng (right) said the act of chaining oneself to the gate and shaking it aggresively was a crime, as the intention was to ‘imprison’ the state assemblypersons in the House and make it impossible for them to leave via the front gate.

He urged the police to view the matter seriously and bring the culprit to justice.

Ariff Ibrahim, identified as the man who had chained himself to the gate, was arrested at 11.45am yesterday when he defied police orders for the crowd to disperse.

“They said the protest will be peaceful but it turned violent,” said Ng.

He accused Penang Pewaris head Shahabuddin Ahmad of saying “threatening words” at the assembly lobby, including that he could instantly instruct the crowd to gate-crash the assembly sitting.

Shahabuddin had been permitted to enter the building to hand over a memorandum to the chief minister, but was unhappy that he only managed to meet Ng, who is Lim’s political secretary.

“We cannot compromise when it comes to threats like this. We are planning to lodge a police report against him today” added Ng.