PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang has once again denied that the Islamist party received RM90 million from Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak.

He said this in response to a question from a member of the audience during a dinner dialogue in conjunction with the Chinese New Year celebration in Kuala Terengganu last night.

"If we took RM90 million, we would not be using this canopy. We would use a nicer one,” he joked.

Hadi also told the audience that he had filed a defamation suit in London against Sarawak Report editor Claire Rewcastle-Brown over the matter.

“The person (who made the allegation) is in England... People here are the ones who taught her and hired her. So we sued her in the English courts,” he added.

Claiming there are signs the judgment would favour PAS, Hadi also alleged that certain quarters had attempted to persuade PAS to withdraw the suit.

“...We will fight it till the end, InsyaAllah (God willing),” he was quoted as saying by Harakah Daily.

Last October, the London-based Rewcastle-Brown (photo) implicated former Bar Council chairperson Ambiga Sreenevasan in the case.

According to court documents sighted by Malaysiakini, Ambiga purportedly told Rewcastle-Brown about Najib's relationship with PAS, including the alleged financial arrangements between the two parties, and the motivations behind it.

"Ambiga had told the defendant that her sources, whom she said, were reliable, had estimated the amount that had been paid was around RM90 million," said Rewcastle-Brown, according to the court documents dated Oct 11.

Meanwhile, Hadi was also asked during the dialogue if PAS wished to work with Umno.

However, the PAS president stressed that the Islamist party would battle Umno in the coming general election.

“We have mentioned that we want to take on Umno in the election. We will contest in 130 seats and these will include Umno (seats).

“DAP is not fighting Umno, DAP is fighting MCA. PKR is fighting everyone. We (PAS) are fighting Umno. In Terengganu, we are contesting 32 state seats and eight parliament seats,” he said.

According to the Harakah Daily report, the Tionghua community in Malaysia has been frightened with lies and slander which have eroded their confidence in PAS under Hadi's leadership.