Jailed former Malaysian deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim has filed a multi-million dollar defamation suit against a local English language newspaper for a story linking him to a US think-tank.
The
New Straits Times
, published by Malaysia's largest newspaper group New Straits Times Press Holdings, alleged in March 2002 that Anwar paid the Washington-based Asia Pacific Policy Centre to boost his profile in the US capital.
It said APPC personnel were also intent in the late 1990s on being retained by the then finance minister Anwar to manage billions of dollars of Malaysian state funds.
"We have written to the NST twice, asking for an apology and withdrawal of the story, but they have ignored us," Anwar's lawyer Mr Sankara Nair told Reuters after filing the 100 million ringgit ($26 million) suit at the Kuala Lumpur High Court.
The case contends the NST story is defamatory and published in bad faith to make Anwar appear "dishonest and disloyal to the country", Mr Nair said.
The NST was not immediately available for comment.
Once a prime-minister-in-waiting, Anwar was controversially sacked in 1998 and jailed for a total of 15 years on separate sex and abuse of power charges he says were trumped up after he fell out with Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad.
Anwar, whom the United States calls a political prisoner, also faced accusations of being a foreign agent, although he was never charged with that. His criminal trials between 1998 and 2000 were criticised by rights groups, the United States and other Western governments.