IPOH: Perak assembly speaker Datuk R. Ganesan filed a RM25mil defamation suit at the High Court here against five opposition assemblymen for linking him to a sex scandal.

Ganesan has named V. Sivakumar (Tronoh), A. Sivasubramaniam (Buntong), Datuk Ngeh Koo Ham (Sitiawan), Nga Kor Ming (Pantai Remis) and Lim Pek Har (Menglembu) as the defendants for linking him to a VCD with a lewd picture on its cover.

“I have already lodged a police report on Dec 22 in order for investigations to be carried out and I stated then that I will take stern action against those who have defamed me.

“On Jan 15, I issued a letter through my lawyer demanding these parties retract their statements and apologise to me on certain terms but until now I have not received anything.

“Therefore, I have decided to file a defamation suit and hand it over to the court to clear my name,” he told reporters at the courthouse yesterday.

On Dec 21 last year, Sivakumar and Sivasubramaniam claimed that they had each received a brown envelope outside of the state assembly, apparently containing a disc with a lewd picture on its cover featuring images of Ganesan and a woman.

There was also a printout of an image from a blog and an envelope with the sender’s address as “Perak MIC liaison body”.

The contents in the disc could not be verified as the recipients claimed that they had not watched it and declined to show it to the media.

Ganesan had rubbished the allegations and said it was an attempt to defame him and his family.

When contacted, Ngeh wondered why Ganesan did not file a suit against the sender.

“We did not say anything or accuse him. We just received the envelope and said nothing else. It was the blog that accused him.

“Any reasonable man would not be suing us. Anyway, we are ready to defend ourselves,” he said.

Sivasubramaniam and Lim said they would pass the matter to their lawyers.

Nga declined to comment but stated that he will see Ganesan in court and may apply to strike out the case. Sivakumar could not be reached for comments.

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