Bernama distorted report: Student denies praising PM's speech in Australia

A Malaysian student, who was at a dinner held for Najib Abdul Razak in Perth, has denied praising the premier's speech, as reported by national news agency Bernama.

When Malaysiakini managed to track down the student through a social networking website, it found that he had already posted a complaint that the report had distorted his words.

When contacted, the student request anonymity as he is a government scholar. He expressed surprise over the report, as he had made the comments prior to Najib's speech.

He  also expressed genuine excitement about meeting the prime minister but did not praise the speech as he had not listened to it yet.

He said, "They totally changed and added stuff that we never said. And the whole thing was done before the speech ... I feel it is rather silly and unnecessary. They... put in quotes that we actually did not say and altered our words. We did not say anything bad so I don't see why they needed to do that.”

Malaysiakini found out that the students were asked to write their comments on a piece of paper prior to the speech, which was subsequently used to process the Bernama report.