KUALA LUMPUR: A director of KiniTV, Malaysiakini’s sister company, pleaded not guilty at the Special Cyber Court here to four counts of improper network use.
KiniTV was charged with two counts under Section 233(1)(a) of the Communications and Multimedia Act, which carries a jail term of up to a year or a fine of up to RM50,000 or both.
There is also a RM1,000 fine for every day that the offence continues after conviction.
KiniTV director Steven Gan also faces two charges under Section 244(1) of the Act, which is related to the liability of those in charge of the companies that have committed the offences.
The charges against Gan, who was present in court, carry the same penalty. He pleaded not guilty to all four charges.
Judge Zaman Mohd Noor set bail at RM2,000 without surety for each charge and fixed Jan 3 for mention.
Earlier, the court postponed the reading of two additional charges against another KiniTV director, Premesh Chandran, for the same offences.
Premesh, argued lawyer Fahri Azzat, had been in Britain on sabbatical since September and was not served notice to appear in court.
Fahri also requested that charges against Premesh be postponed until next August when he was scheduled to return to Malaysia.
Deputy public prosecutor Mohd Sophian Zakaria, however, argued that this was too long and asked for the case to be postponed to Jan 3.
Speaking to reporters later, Gan called the charges a “pure case of harassment”.
“I will be discussing with my lawyers of the likelihood to subpoena the Attorney-General to testify. He will have to explain why reporting on someone describing a public official as worthless is a crime,” he said.
Gan also claimed that there was conflict of interest in that the A-G’s Chambers was charging a media organisation for uploading videos which insulted the A-G.
“Once again, action is taken against the media for covering a press conference,” he said, adding that Malaysiakini had also “been investigated numerous times for this”.
They were doing their job as journalists, added Gan.
