KOTA KINABALU: A former aide to a former Sabah chief minister has lodged a police report over claims linking him to the alleged sale of Malaysian citizenship to undocumented migrants.
Francis Au, who previously served as special officer to Datuk Seri Shafie Apdal, said the allegations made in a blog post and widely shared online were defamatory and inciteful.
Au said he was alerted by Warisan Youth chief Terence Au about a blog post that accused him of being involved in "selling" citizenship to undocumented migrants.
The blog post accused Shafie of endorsing citizenship applications for undocumented migrants during his tenure as chief minister to gain political support, implicating Au as one of the individuals involved in facilitating the process.
“These are clearly malicious lies and a form of incitement aimed at provoking hatred towards me personally, the former chief minister, and the Warisan administration, including other leaders like Datuk Azis Jamman, who was then deputy home minister,” he said in a statement after lodging the report at the Kota Kinabalu district police headquarters, Monday (April 7).
He said the same content had also been spread via WhatsApp in a group chat named “SUARA PENAMPANG” with WhatsApp ID “~Jalin”, believed to be the same person behind the blog.
In addition to the blog post, Au also pointed to a viral video on TikTok and Facebook that claimed the Warisan government had approved housing construction on mangrove areas in Sepanggar.
He said the video was uploaded by a Facebook user calling himself "Johnny Soimpon" and similarly contained defamatory content meant to tarnish Shafie’s reputation.
He called for investigations under Sections 499 to 500 of the Penal Code for defamation, the Sedition Act 1948 for any inciteful content, and Section 233 of the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998 for the transmission of offensive or false information via online platforms.
