Art Harun cringes at press statement by PM’s lawyers
Navina Vivekanandan
| July 8, 2015
The lawyer criticises the content of the letter and remarks how it is littered with grammatical errors.
KUALA LUMPUR: Lawyer Azhar Harun was astounded when he read the unsigned letter dated today allegedly from the solicitors of Prime Minister Najib Razak to Dow Jones & Co, Inc, publishers of The Wall Street Journal (WSJ). Better known as Art Harun, the lawyer expressed disbelief over the content of the letter and remarked how it was littered with grammatical errors that made him cringe. “Reading the letter to Dow Jones and the press statement by lawyers acting for the PM, it struck me that it is the first time ever I am seeing lawyers telling their potential opponent what they have done so far; are currently doing; will be doing and will have to do in order to decide what to do next in the matter,” he wrote in a Facebook posting today. He was also stumped at how the lawyers asked their potential opponent the meaning of what had been published so that they could decide their next course of action. Apart from the content of the letter that he summarily tore apart, he also commented on the horrendous English which he said made him “cringe at almost every sentence”. Providing “free advice” for the publishers of WSJ, Art said their letter of reply to the law firm of Hafarizam, Wan & Aisha Mubarak should be as follows: “Dear lawyers, inability to grasp and/or understand what we had published is not a known or established ground for defamation suits. Thank you.” Before signing off, Art cheekily took a jab at PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang who had earlier claimed that WSJ must provide four witnesses to prove graft claims against Najib according to Islamic law. “…I am actually quite surprised that the lawyers did not ask Dow Jones to produce four trustworthy witnesses to back up their allegations and quote some hadiths and Quranic verses, or just quote Haji Hadi Awang as authority.”
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