KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 28 — PKR’s Rafizi Ramli invited Malaysians today to openly criticise Datuk Seri Najib Razak, saying the public should not be cowed by his threat to sue PAS organ Harakah as the prime minister would not likely proceed with the legal challenge.

In a statement here, the PKR secretary-general pointed out that Najib had similarly threatened to sue him last year for criticising his administration’s removal of fuel subsidies but has yet to file the case in court.

“Therefore, I would advise Najib to sue me first before threatening to sue others,” Rafizi said.

“I would also like to encourage more people to criticise Najib and not to be afraid by his suit threats because up until today, he has yet to sue anyone, not even his number one critic Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad,” the Pandan MP pointed out.

On Thursday, Najib’s lawyers delivered a letter of demand to Dr Rosli Yaakub, the managing director of Harakah.

The legal action was filed by Najib in his personal capacity over an article titled “Dana 1MDB biayai syarikat filem Riza Aziz?” (“1MDB funds used to finance Riza Aziz’s film company?”) that he deemed to be defamatory.

The Harakah article had questioned how Riza sourced funds to finance his company’s (Red Granite Productions) 2013 film “The Wolf of Wall Street”, and had alluded to a connection between 1 Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) funds and the said film.

On December 4 last year, Rafizi received a letter of demand from Najib demanding that he retract his statement in a video titled titled “Kenapa Kita Pertahan Subsidi Minyak” [“Why we are defending fuel subsidy”], which was part of a speech made in a rally in Bandar Tun Razak.

Rafizi replied the letter within the timeframe given, telling the prime minister that he would not retract his remarks and was prepared to meet him in court.

“But until today, I’ve not received any response from Najib,” Rafizi said today, adding that he was “disappointed” with the prime minister’s silence.

He said, however, that the lack of response from Najib could ultimately be taken to mean that he was right in his critique of the government’s removal of fuel subsidies.

Should Najib proceed with the Harakah suit, it would be the prime minister’s second legal challenge against an online publication.

In May last year Najib, in his capacity as Umno president and his party filed a civil suit against news portal Malaysiakini over a series of readers’ posts published on their website related to the Terengganu mentri besar saga.