KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 7 ― Lim Kit Siang threatened today to take legal action if former Inspector-General of Police (IGP) Tun Hanif Omar could not prove his claims in two days that the DAP leader advocated for the peninsula to be split into two.
Lim said Hanif’s allegations at a forum in Universiti Teknologi Mara yesterday, which claimed Lim advocated after the 1969 general election for the Malays to get the east coast and for the west coast to go to the Chinese, were news to him.
“In fact, in my more than half a century of public life, I had never come across any such suggestion from anyone.
“Where did Hanif source such a cock-and-bull story?” Lim said in a statement.
The Iskandar Puteri MP also said Hanif was mistaken about claiming that he, as IGP, had sent Lim to prison following the May 13 riots in 1969.
“This is the first time I have heard that he was responsible for my first detention under the Internal Security Act 1960,” said Lim.
“In the first place, he was not the Inspector-General of Police when I was detained for the first time under the Internal Security Act on 18th May 1969.
“Hanif served as Inspector-General of Police from 1974 to 1994, after I had been released from ISA detention on Oct. 1, 1970,” he added.
Lim challenged Hanif to “quote chapter and verse, date and place” where he had allegedly called for the peninsula to be split into two.
“I reserve my right to institute legal action to vindicate my character and reputation which I would disclose after two days.”
