Perkasa head Ibrahim Ali grabbed media attention again today, just three hours after being convicted and sentenced for contempt of court .
Although fined RM20,000 and sentenced to a day's jail - and taken to the lock-up at the the Kuala Lumpur Court Complex - he was spotted at the cafetaria about 4pm.
Ibrahim, who was with his lawyer and friends, was seen having a teh tarik .
Asked why he was out of the court lock-up earlier than 5pm, Ibrahim said the officers allowed him out after he paid the fine.
He was, however, told not to leave the court complex until 5pm.
While saying that he accepts the sentence, he denied making any insulting statement that was in contempt of court.
"You know me. Although I'm a controversial figure, I have never committed any offence," he said.
"The problem is, the media spins my words. I'm a victim of circumstances, a victim of the social media."
He accused certain news portals of purportedly highlighting his statements all the while to boost the number of ‘hits’.
For example, Ibrahim said his distribution of money packed in
white envelopes
during Chinese New Year a few years ago was due to ignorance, not knowing that this act insulted the Chinese community.
“I didn’t know that was wrong... Malaysiakini and The Malaysian Insider reporters were there. They never told me, but they went back to their offices and wrote that Ibrahim Ali had humiliated the Chinese.
“Then I (was regarded to have) become controversial, so I become a ‘racist’,” he claimed.
‘Going to the lock-up is nothing new’
High Court judge John Louis O’Hara today sentenced Ibrahim to a day’s jail and a fine of RM20,000 - or two weeks’ jail in default, in relation to an article written by blogger Zainuddin Salleh that was posted on the Perkasa website on Jan 7.
The article questioned the integrity of High Court judge VT Singham, who was on Jan 22 due to deliver judgment on Anwar Ibrahim’s defamation suit against Utusan Melayu (Malaysia) Bhd and its editor-in-chief Abdul Aziz Ishak.
Justice Singham in the article was accused of being biased towards the opposition and his sexual orientation was also questioned.
For this, Zainuddin was convicted of contempt and sentenced to four weeks’ jail.
Justice O’Hara in his judgment today also noted that Perkasa had allowed the article to appear on its website and that its president had done nothing to remove it.
To this, Ibrahim claimed that he had nothing to do with the website, and that he had never responded to the article.
Asked about the short stay at the lock-up, Ibrahim chided: “To me, going into the lock-up is nothing new. I was arrested under ISA (Internal Security Act) in 1974 for 26 months, so to me it’s nothing new.
“When I came to the lock-up, it reminded me of my old days, my beautiful days, a nostalgia.”
When contacted, Anwar’s counsel R Sivarasa said he had no idea why Ibrahim was allowed to go to the cafeteria.
“As far as I know, he should be kept at the courtroom for a day, even though he had paid the fine,” Sivarasa said.
