A written answer by the Defence Ministry to PKR’s Pandan MP Rafizi Ramli seems to have confirmed the identity of notorious pro-government blogger Papagomo as Wan Muhammad Azri Wan Deris.

Rafizi had asked the ministry to confirm the presence of a certain Wan Muhammad Azri on board the Scorpene submarine in Langkawi in 2011.

The ministry confirmed that Wan Muhammad Azri was on board the submarine on Dec 9 that year, and this corroborates with Papagomo’s blogpost days after that claiming that he was on board the Scorpene on the invitation of a minister.

Wan Muhammad Azri  had vehemently denied that he was Papagomo in two civil cases that he had faced recently. He lost two defamation cases, to a businessman, and also to opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim.

Based on this evidence, Rafizi said that PKR will lodge police reports to urge criminal action be taken against Wan Muhammad Azri.

“This is perjury. This is a straightforward case,” Rafizi ( right ) said during a press conference at Parliament today, noting that the offence under Section 193 of the Penal Code for lying in court carries a jail term of up to seven years.

Rafizi will lodge the police report together with Padang Serai MP N Surendran next Tuesday, April 8, and Rafizi said that this would serve as a “test” of the independence of the police and the courts.

“This is an arrestable offence. We would like to see how swiftly the police acts because the evidence is strong enough,” he said.

Rafizi also said that he would also file a defamation suit against Wan Muhammad Azri after the latter allegedly claimed that Rafizi was sacked from Petronas due to breach of trust in a blog post in the ‘Papagomo’ blog in late 2012.

“I have been holding back from taking legal action all this while because I was waiting for evidence that Papagomo is Wan Muhammad Azri,” he said.

But he said that the criminal action is what PKR will prioritise to pursue rather than the civil suit.