Activist admits to meeting Ching Peng

KUALA LUMPUR: Activist Hishamuddin Md Rais admitted that he and the late husband of Bersih 2.0 chairman Maria Chin Abdullah, had met communist leader Chin Peng in the 1980s but denied that they supported communism.
Testifying in the High Court today in Maria's defamation suit against Sungai Besar Umno division leader Datuk Seri Jamal Md Yunos, he said that he and Yunos Lebai Ali had met the Parti Komunis Malaya secretary-general in Beijing in the 1980s for "peace talks".
"Chin Peng wanted to get the young people's views on peace talks with the government then. We met them and gave our views," Hishamuddin said before Judge Datuk Mohd Zaki Abdul Wahab during cross-examination.
He was responding to questions by defence counsel Mohd Nasser Yusof on whether he and Yunos supported communism and sympathised with the struggles of Chin Peng and his party.
Hishamuddin was a student leader activist in Universiti Malaya in the 1970s and Yunos was his junior in campus and also an active member in the student council.
When Hishamuddin was questioned on Yunos' links to the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), he said Yunos joined PLO in 1977 and was a member of the Al-Fatah, which is a group within PLO.
He however strongly disagreed that PLO was categorised as a terrorist group as suggested by Mohd Nasser.
In his witness statement, Hishamuddin said that Yunos was the personal bodyguard of PLO chairman, the late Palestinian political leader Yasser Arafat.
Maria had filed a defamation suit against Jamal for claiming that Bersih was infiltrated by the Islamic State and Daesh militants on two occasions in 2016.
The trial has been postponed to Tuesday, where Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim will testify as the plaintiff's witness.