SHAH ALAM, July 19: Former Indonesian Vice-President, Jusuf Kalla in a letter denied issuing a statement linking Opposition Leader, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim with acquiring funds from abroad to launch the Blackout505 assembly.
In a letter addressed to the Chief Editor of the Berita Harian (BH) newspaper, Jusuf stressed that he was never interviewed on the said issue and refutes the news published by the newspaper on 28 June 2013 with the title ‘Anwar obtains foreign funds to launch Blackout505’ (Anwar dapat dana asing lancar Blackout 505).
“I would like to clarify that I never gave an exclusive interview to Al-Azharri Siddiq. Azharri met me briefly during a courtesy call to hand me a letter requesting that I meet 8 Malaysian journalists – a request which I rejected.
“The meeting (1 June 2013) was only a brief courtesy call at the arrangement of an Indonesian Member of Parliament.
“Therefore what Berita Harian reported doesn’t reflect reality and Azharri has since apologised to me about this matter on numerous occasions,” said Jusuf in a letter dated 18 July 2013, a copy of which was given to Anwar.
On July 16, Anwar, who is also the PKR De Facto Leader, decided to sue the Berita Harian newspaper following a slanderous report stating that he obtained large funds from Turkey, the United States and the Philippines to be used in the Black505 assembly.
The newspaper report was supposedly quoted from an exclusive interview with former Indonesian Vice-President, Jusuf Kalla with the Merdeka On-line news portal in Jakarta, Indonesia.
On Tuesday, at the House of Representatives, Anwar also said that he had received calls and SMS text messages from Jusuf who was disappointed that his statement was manipulated.
The Permatang Pauh Member of Parliament also urged the Deputy Home Affairs Minister, Datuk Seri Dr Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar to explain why the ministry took a long time to take action on this issue when clarifications and objections have been already made by Jusuf himself.
