This letter is written in reply to Dr M Bakri Musa whose column Seeing it my way appeared in malaysiakini o­n Feb 27.

I have no intention of getting into any debate with Bakri o­n his way of looking at things pertaining to the raid o­n malaysiakini. But I believe there is a need to clarify some things raised by Bakri o­n matters, not regarding what he thought of my opinions, but rather the accusations that I had paraphrased and sanitised what he had written to the New Straits Times earlier.

In fact, he had sent an e-mail to me o­n Feb 22, the contents of which included what appeared in his malaysiakini column o­n Feb 27.

I did not reply as to my mind, his accusations of "paraphrasing and sanitising" his (unpublished) letter to the op-ed questioned the integrity of the editor of that section and as such, I forwarded Bakri's e-mail to the op-ed editor.

The editor (Kamrul Idris) replied to him o­n the same day and sent a copy of the reply to me (Kamrul's reply to Bakri enclosed below).

To my mind, after reading Kamrul's reply, it would have been sufficient for Bakri to realise that I had no idea whatsoever of the original article o­n the malaysiakini raid which he claimed was sent to the NST's op-ed and was not used.

However, it was not to be so and he continued with his pestering, again writing to Kamrul with a copy sent to me. Among other things, he still seemed dissatisfied with Kamrul's reply and wondered why I chose not to rebut his views.

For Bakri's information, I chose not to reply to his ranting because I do not see the need at all to deal with someone who is so full of himself which probably is o­ne way for him to have a wholesome life.

Furthermore, I guess it was o­ne of my 'bad days' when I wrote the issue o­n the malaysiakini raid in my Saturday Notes column in which some of my thoughts degenerated to become similar to those of Bakri.

Below is the reply from Kamrul.

Dear Encik Bakri:

Our e-mail below was forwarded to me by Shamsul Akmar for my response. For your information, rejected contributions to the Op-Ed Desk are kept confidential and not, as you might have implied, retailed to other desks to use as they please. Shamsul came to his own conclusions o­n the malaysiakini affair - as others might equally have done - without recourse to your piece.

In order to keep the subject within the proportions we had set for it, Op-Ed decided from the outset to forego unsolicited submissions, except for selected letters in response to our commentary. The Political Desk, to which Shamsul belongs, made their own decisions o­n the matter.

Warmest regards,
Kamrul Idris
Op-Ed, NST