Opposition party Pakatan Rakyat is mulling contempt of court proceeding against Umno Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin for his statements which they claim diverted from the recorded court settlement of a defamation suit by de facto party leader Anwar Ibrahim against him.    

“I have proposed contempt of court proceeding (against him). We are talking to our lawyers (about it). We are closely monitoring his statements,” said party deputy president Mohd Azmin Ali in a press conference at party headquarters today.

Azmin related that Khairy had said in court that he never uttered words that accused Anwar of being a “traitor to the Malays” and a “puppet of the US and Jews” in a speech he delivered in Perak circa August 2007.

The Bukit Antarabangsa assemblyperson however accused Khairy of contradicting this when he told Sinar Harian Online yesterday that he never withdrew his statement about Anwar but accused the media of distorting his statement from the 2007 speech.

“Yes, he withdrew his suit without costs with no need for me to apologise. I only need to say that I never said those words that the papers reported as being from my speech,” the Malay daily quoted Khairy as saying.

Anwar however, when commenting on yesterday’s settlement of his suit, said that the agreement meant that Khairy has retracted the words against his person.

The Permatang Pauh MP said that the settlement was reached after transcripts and news reports tendered by Khairy himself as defence exhibits had implicated the Umno Youth chief as having said those words.

The evidence, insist Anwar, shows that Khairy did say those words against him and had then retracted those words when they settled the case.