Senator Raja Kamarul Bahrin Shah Raja Ahmad (above) today showed the Kuala Lumpur High Court evidence that he was in the country at the time that MyNewsHub alleged he was on a "luxurious vacation" in the UK. 

Testifying in his suit against the portal, Raja Bahrin said that he was actually in Kuala Terengganu carrying out his duties as then-MP in December 2016, although the report "Wakil rakyat PAN cuti mewah di UK abai mangsa bah" (Amanah representative goes on luxury UK vacation, neglects flood victims) claimed he was on holiday.

The senator provided the court with a copy of his programme in Kuala Terengganu from Dec 27, 2016, and Jan 7, 2017, most of which was spent on providing assistance to flood victims in the state.

Using his wife's Instagram account as evidence, he also said that the pictures that appeared in MyNewsHub were actually from October 2016, when he was on a working trip with other Amanah leaders to the UK.

"The pictures as depicted by the portal were from my wife's Instagram, and they have a date on it, sometime in October 2016, when I travelled with other Amanah leaders to the UK to form the Amanah UK Supporters club.

"I brought my children around as I could hardly spend time with them on our busy schedule. I came back in mid-October for the Parliament session.

"I make it a point to be in Terengganu in December and January as it is the monsoon season," he said.

Furthermore, the senator said his trip with other Amanah leaders was a working trip as he is the party's international bureau head and during that short span of time in October 2016, they visited Manchester, Liverpool and London and there was no trip to Paris as claimed by the portal.

Raja Bahrin said the article was false and painted him in a bad light, as it implied that he had abandoned his constituents while they were facing massive floods in the state
and that he was irresponsible politician and lived in luxury.  

"At the time, I had left PAS and joined the newly formed Amanah. I was able to regain the trust of the people from PAS to Amanah, and the article came out which put me and Amanah in a bad light," he said.

He said this when asked this by his counsel Nadzratun Naim Hammad Azizi and Nurilya Ellyna Nor Azmal during examination-in-chief and re-examination.

'We're not the owners'

Raja Bahrin had filed his suit against MyNewsNet Sdn Bhd last year for publishing the allegedly defamatory article. 

 

He added that to make matters worse the portal did not verify with him the reports.

"The defendant has nefarious intent in publishing or allowing the publication of the defamatory words as it did not certify or verify with me the contents of the report and that putting the words mentioned alongside the pictures that are defamatory to me is with an aim to sensationalise the defamatory news unnaturally, all at once based on the intention to tarnish my dignity, goodwill, credibility and integrity as a Muslim and the member of Parliament for Kuala Terengganu," he said.

"Furthermore, the defendant's action of taking down or deleting the report clearly showed its admission that the article was defamatory," he added.

Raja Bahrin said the damage has been done as other portals shared the news and the article was also printed and placed in mosques to further damage his reputation.

The 63-year old senator said while the defendant denied they are the owners of MyNewsHub, in replying to a letter of demand dated January 2017 from his lawyers, his own search on Linked In showed that the company owned the portal.

Meanwhile, the senator's other witness, an information technology lecturer from UKM, Mohd Rosmadi Mokhtar, said the domain name of MyNewsHub.cc was the same as MyNewsHub.tv which is owned by the same company.

MyNewsNet in its defence denied it was the publisher of the article or that it owned the MyNewsHub website.

Lawyer Ahmad Hazrin Abdul Rahman appeared for MyNewsNet. The trial continues tomorrow before Judicial Commissioner Darryl Goon.