DAP assemblyman sues Hee over pepper spray attack

By Shannon Teoh - The Malaysian Insider

IPOH, June 26 – DAP assemblyman Yew Tian Hoe has filed a suit against Perak assembly deputy speaker Hee Yit Foong for allegedly assaulting him with a pepper spray during the chaotic May 7 sitting state.

This adds to the mountain of legal battles over the Perak constitutional crisis which has already seen multiple suits being filed by mentri besars, speakers, assemblymen and even voters to gain legitimate control of the state government.

Arriving at the High Court here at about 11am this morning with Perak DAP secretary Nga Kor Ming and several other Pakatan Rakyat (PR) assemblymen, Yew claimed that he had video evidence of the incident.

“I already spotted her holding it before the sitting began which was why I was careful and later, avoided the full force of the spray,” he told reporters.

Nga added that the Aulong assemblyman had given Hee more than a month to apologise for the attack but since she has instead “twisted the facts and lied to the public,” Yew had no choice but to file a suit as part of his duty to defend the honour of the assembly.

“The suit sends a signal on the importance of the sanctity of the house,” he said, adding that for this act, Hee should resign as deputy speaker.

Hee has denied the allegations, claiming the pepper spray canister had been thrown at her and she had just picked it up from the floor and asked Yew whether the item belonged to him.

In the aftermath of the May 7 sitting where Barisan Nasional’s (BN) Datuk R. Ganesan had replaced V. Sivakumar as speaker, she had first claimed that she had pointed her hotel key-chain and not a pepper spray canister at Yee. Other reports quoted her as saying it was a pendrive.

But after pictures of her clearly holding up a pepper spray canister surfaced, she admitted that she held the spray but never used it, arguing that if she had, Yew would have been blinded for several days but instead ended the day unharmed.

She has become deeply unpopular especially with ethnic Chinese in Perak for what they see as an act of betrayal when she left DAP and declared her support for BN, a move which helped to trigger the Feb 5 takeover of the state government and subsequently, the current constitutional crisis.