Ting to Wong: Say sorry or else…
Dismissed Pujut assemblyman Dr Ting Tiong Choon threatens to sue, saying the UPP leader had relied on hearsay to accuse him of being a bankrupt.
KUCHING: Former DAP assemblyman Dr Ting Tiong Choon today issued a letter of demand to Sarawak Second Finance Minister Wong Soon Koh to apologise for calling him a bankrupt.
Ting is demanding a public retraction of the alleged defamatory statement against him made on May 15. He is giving Soon Koh seven days to retract his claim.
Soon Koh is also the state international trade and e-commerce minister as well as president of BN-friendly party United People’s Party (UPP). The letter was handed to Soon Koh’s office here this morning.
Ting was disqualified from his seat by the state assembly recently after a motion tabled by Soon Koh on the grounds that Ting had acquired Australian citizenship although he renounced it before contesting in the state election in May last year.
A by-election has been called for July 4 to fill the vacated seat.
Ting’s legal counsel, Wong King Wei, who is DAP’s Padungan assemblyman, said Ting would drop the matter if Soon Koh apologised.
“My client just wants to clear his name,” King Wei told reporters.
When asked why Ting’s name allegedly showed up as being insolvent twice in 2012 in an Australian bankruptcy registry search, King Wei maintained that Ting was not a bankrupt and Soon Koh had not provided any documentary proof of the bankruptcy.
On May 15, Soon Koh told reporters that Ting was a bankrupt based on the search he made on July 1, 2016, at the Australian Financial Security Authority.
Ting said he had told Soon Koh that no one became bankrupt twice within three months.
“And yet he continued to make the assertion without checking the truth.
“It was ignorant on his part not to find out the truth and instead rely on hearsay from his party supporters.
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“Now, we will see him in court,” Ting said.