KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA: A prominent Malaysian blogger opted to go to jail on Tuesday instead of paying bail, after he was accused of sedition for implying the country's deputy premier had a hand in the murder of a Mongolian woman.

Mr Raja Petra Raja Kamarudin, who runs the independent news website Malaysia Today (www.malaysia-today.net), pleaded not guilty to the charge of publishing a seditious article on his website.

"This is the first time a blogger has been charged with sedition," his lawyer Karpal Singh told Reuters. Mr Raja Petra is charged with implying in a post on April 25 that Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak and his wife were involved in the 2006 murder of Altantuya Shaariibuu, a 28-year-old Mongolian model.

Mr Najib has denied the allegation through a spokesman, calling it "unfounded" and "designed to tarnish his standing within the Malaysian public". Dozens of opposition members and bloggers gathered to show support for Raja Petra outside a Kuala Lumpur magistrate's court where police summoned him to be charged. His supporters slammed the charge, which carries a maximum punishment of three years in jail, as a blow to freedom of speech.

"Raja Petra has done a lot to raise people's awareness of issues," said Ms Nurul Izzah Anwar, an opposition member of Parliament and daughter of opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim. "This is an attempt to clamp down on all sorts of freedom. We would have thought that after the elections, things would have changed," Ms Nurul Izzah said, referring to the huge losses the ruling National Front coalition suffered in the March 8 elections.

Mr Singh said Mr Raja Petra refused the court's offer of bail of RM5,000 (S$2,155) until Oct 6, when the case is scheduled to resume, saying it was a matter of principle. A rights campaigner criticised Tuesday's action, saying the government was using Malaysia's broadly worded sedition laws to silence critics and harass bloggers.

"We... firmly believe that the use of the Sedition Act is being done to protect narrow political interests," said Mr Gayathry Venkiteswaran, of the Malaysia- based Centre for Independent Journalism.

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