Former Perak menteri besar Mohd Nizar Jamaluddin has filed RM50 million defamation suits against Utusan Malaysia and TV3 respectively, in relation to allegedly defamatory reports on the WWW1 car number-plate issue.

NONE The suits, filed at the Kuala Lumpur High Court, included an application for an injunction to prevent the two media groups from repeating the ‘defamatory’ reports.

Nizar claimed that TV3 had reported his tweet in a defamatory manner, and that Utusan had twisted his tweet the next day.

On June 27, he had given both groups seven days to apologise for “manipulating” his tweet on the Johor ruler’s RM520,000 bid for the WWW1 number-plate.

The police are investigating Nizar, after 41 reports were lodged against him following the tweet.

They had raided his offices in Perak and had gone to his hotel in Kuala Lumpur before the end of the parliament session.

“I do not know what is the progress of the police investigations,” he said.

Initially, he said he did not want to sue but upon advise by supporters and leaders he had decided to file this legal action.

He said Utusan Malaysia ’s sister paper Kosmo had been highlighting the bid much earlier on April 8 and had made comparisons of what RM520,000 may buy and also had a cartoon mocking the bid.

“I had merely tweeted that the amount could have been used to help the poor,” he said, adding it was not meant to disrespect the Johor ruler’s bid.

“Why was there no action taken against Utusan and why I am subject to such persecution?” he asked.

Nizar said his lead counsel to the case will be Asmuni Awi from Awi & Co.