Lim seeks damages, a front-page apology, and an injunction to prevent Raja Petra from repeating his allegations, which were contained in a series of articles “From the MACC Files” published in February and March.
The articles, published at the Malaysia Today website, contained images of what Raja Petra said were documents from the MACC investigation into a RM6 billion project to build an undersea tunnel between Penang island and the mainland.
Raja Petra (frequently referred to by his initials RPK) alleged that there had been “criminal collaboration” between the Attorney-General’s Chambers, the MACC and Pakatan Harapan leaders to cover up corruption involving the Penang undersea tunnel.
He had also alleged that kickbacks had been paid to Lim and other Pakatan Harapan leaders.
Among those mentioned in the articles are Pakatan Harapan chairman Dr Mahathir Mohamad, Penang Chief Minister Chow Kon Yeow, Attorney-General Tommy Thomas, former tourism and culture minister Nazri Abdul Aziz, and the chairman and managing director of Consortium Zenith Construction Sdn Bhd, Zarul Ahmad Mohd Zulkifli.
Lim is now finance minister in the federal cabinet.
According to Malaysiakini, the suit against Raja Petra was filed last month and the case will come up for case management at the Kuala Lumpur High Court on Nov 7.
In the statement of claim quoted by Malaysiakini, Lim seeks examplary damages on the grounds that Raja Petra “must have obtained profit from the huge volume of readership on all the articles”. and such profits might exceed the amount of damages” that could be awarded to Lim.
Lim also seeks an order to compel Raja Petra to publish an unconditional apology on the front pages of The Star, New Straits Times, Berita Harian and Sin Chew Daily.
The statement of claim alleged that Raja Petra was “relentless in his campaign of purported lies and character assassination” against Lim.
“The 10 articles received wide publicity and broad coverage to the extent that it became the subject of discussion in the public domain, and that the statements were read by multitudes who had access to and browsed Malaysia Today,” the statement said.