A DAP political aide has questioned why The Star replaced a story filed on its website with an “inaccurate and false” version in its print version the following day.

NONE In an open letter to The Star ’s editor-in-chief, the political secretary to DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng said the party demands an explanation from the newspaper as to “the contradictions and conflicting premises” of the two articles.

Zairil Khir Johari ( left ) also asked The Star to explain why “an initially correct report had come to be replaced by one that was imaginatively concocted.”   

On Sunday on the newspaper’s website, DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng was correctly quoted as saying its central executive committee (CEC) leadership would resign if hudud law was found to be inked for implementation in the Pakatan Rakyat Common Policy Framework (CPF) or the Buku Jingga publication containing the coalition’s agenda if it took over government.

“In other words, if hudud law was inscribed in and prescribed by the CPF or Buku Jingga, then our CEC leaders would resign en masse from their party posts in the DAP,” according to Zairil.

In the print version the following day, however, The Star had implied “wrongly and falsely” that Lim had threatened the resignation of the party’s top leadership from the Pakatan leadership council if hudud law was found to be in the CPF or Buku Jingga.

“This is categorically untrue as Lim had neither made any threats to quit the Pakatan Rakyat leadership council, nor the Pakatan Rakyat in general.

NONE “All Lim had said was that the entire CEC leadership would resign from their party posts to take full responsibility if hudud law was found to be included in the CPR or Buku Jingga.”

This development follows an earlier controversy over Johor in which Lim was reported as having bad mouthed the southern state during an overseas trip.

Lim responded by demanding an apology from Bernama , which quoted him as having made the remarks in an interview with an Australian radio station.

Lim said he mentioned neither Johor or the crime rates in any other state in Malaysia during the interview, and produced an official transcript of the recording to back his claim.

However, last night private television station TV3 disclosed that the remarks were in fact made, but not in Australia as reported by Bernama .

Lim, according to the audio recording provided by TV3, had made the statement in question in Singapore when meeting with members of the Foreign Correspondents Association in the republic.