PETALING JAYA, Malaysia —

Malaysia charged a prominent blogger Tuesday with sedition over an article implying that the deputy prime minister and his wife were involved in the highly politicized murder case of a Mongolian model. Raja Petra Kamaruddin, the maverick editor of the popular news portal ‘‘Malaysia Today,’’ pleaded not guilty at the Petaling Jaya Sessions Court for publishing a seditious article on April 25 titled ‘‘Let’s send the Altantuya murderers to hell.’’

Altantuya Shaariibuu was a Mongolian model who was killed in October 2006 before her body was blown to bits with explosives. Abdul Razak Baginda, who headed a think tank linked to Deputy Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak, has been charged with conspiring with two police officers to murder her after she allegedly harassed him for money when he wanted to end their affair. According to the prosecution, Raja Petra had in his article implicated Najib and his wife, Rosmah Mansor, in the murder.

Raja Petra had also insinuated in his article that Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi ‘‘is covering up evidence implicating Najib in the murder.’’

© 2008 Kyodo News. All rights reserved. No reproduction or republication without written permission.

2 Comments

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  lozzenator at 09:15 AM JST - 7th May

  Whatever happened to "freedom of speech"? This country has a seriously fractured government.

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  thedeath at 12:45 PM JST - 7th May

  what "freedom of speech"? this muslim country has been under the state of emergency for 50years or something already.

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