Penjore, who has been accused of defaming the Office of the Attorney General (OAG), is still standing his ground and denies the allegation. During his rebuttal at the Thimphu District court today, Penjore said he is innocent since everything he wrote was true and was already revealed by a news article. The Police charged him for allegedly defaming the OAG through a social media post.
In his rebuttal today, Penjore said he is not liable for defamation as he didn’t write any false statement. According to his rebuttal statement, he wrote the facts following the news article which was aired on May 4, last year.
Furthermore, he said there is no need for him to report to the concerned authority just to write facts on social media. His post was about a news article on the conviction of twelve former Bhutan National Bank employees for forgery.
He also questioned the OAG’s act of dropping the probable charges against the bank’s executive committee members due to lack of evidence when the former employees of BNB were convicted. He said this proves as evidence of lack of accountability and official misconduct.
He argued that the Attorney General and the Bank officials should rather be charged. Moreover, he said he was detained for 16 days and he should get compensation for it.
The Police charged Penjore for defamation. He wrote, “Shocking Bigger Crime at the Bhutan’s OAG Level-A guilty Secret Cheating Case through Collusion- A National Shame”, “DANGEROUS and greater corruption happening in the OAG” and “Bhutan completely into NoW converting Bhutan as a complete lawless Country in the eyes of the World……Monstrous Wrongdoing of OAG is not corrected immediately.”
The Thimphu District Court registered the case in November last year.
Tshering Zam
Edited by Yeshi Gyaltshen
