Kit Siang: Was Gani involved with the draft charge sheet?

Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak should also come clean on the RM2.6 billion in his personal accounts and related issues.

KUALA LUMPUR: The new Attorney-General Mohd Apandi Ali owes Malaysians a full and satisfactory explanation as to whether Abdul Gani Patail was suddenly and shockingly sacked as Attorney-General on July 27 and whether he (Gani) was involved, among other things, with the draft charge sheet to prosecute the Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak for corruption.

DAP elder statesman Lim Kit Siang lamented that there are no signs either that Najib was prepared to come clean on the various scandals, or his newly-promoted lieutenants would not remain obsessed with fighting fictitious or imaginary enemies – like the new Education Minister Mahadzir Khalid saying a “Jewish and Christian agenda aimed at splitting the Malays” as behind the demands for accountability for the RM42 billion 1MDB scandal and RM2.6 billion scandals.

What Najib should do, said Lim, instead of going on a national roadshow to elicit sympathy and support at Umno divisional meetings, was to start giving detailed explanations about the RM42 billion 1MDB and RM2.6 billion deposit scandals.

When the draft charge sheet against Najib on the corruption offence first appeared on the Sarawak Report website, resumed Lim who is also DAP Parliamentary Leader and Gelang Patah MP, Apandi Ali had in the first instance dismissed the draft charge sheet as false and a fake, and if so, this matter should end there.

However, added Lim, the Inspector-General of Police Khalid Abu Bakar said on Sunday that police actions against MACC directors and two senior officers were taken because there was a need to find how the copy of the charge sheet could be uploaded on the Sarawak Report portal.

“This would mean that there was in fact such a draft corruption charge sheet against Najib in the premises of MACC, and that this draft charge sheet was leaked out to the Sarawak Report website,” said Lim. “If not, why were the MACC directors and officers arrested or investigated in connection with this draft charge sheet against Najib for corruption?”

With these new developments, which points to the new Attorney-General not speaking the truth in his first public statement when he denied there was a draft charge sheet against the Prime Minister and that it was a fake, said Lim, Malaysians want to know whether Gani Patail was sacked because he was in some way implicated in the draft charge sheet on corruption against Najib.

Besides Mahadzir Khalid, said Lim, Najib “loyalists” are spinning the theory of an international conspiracy to “criminalize” him and to topple the elected government of Malaysia.

In such a hot-house atmosphere in the top reaches of government created by a so-called “international conspiracy” to topple Najib as the elected Prime Minister, said Lim, there appeared to be an enemy behind every bush and stone, as if traitors were crawling all over the key national positions, in particular in three of the four agencies constituting the Special Task Force investigating 1MDB and RM2.6 billion scandals viz. the Attorney-General’s Chambers, Bank Negara Malaysia and MACC.

The new Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, noted Lim, said in Tanah Merah on Saturday that Umno members will be given a detailed explanation on the RM42 billion 1MDB scandal and the RM2.6 billion political fund soon.

This is a cop-out and completely unacceptable for two reasons, warned Lim.

Firstly, he asked, why only to the three million Umno members? “What about the 27 million non-Umno Malaysians?”

Secondly, he asked, why the government had failed to give a proper and satisfactory explanation about the 1MDB scandal in the past five years since questions were asked by Petaling Jaya Utara MP Tony Pua and Pandan MP Rafizi Ramli; and in the past five weeks since the Wall Street Journal shocked Malaysians and the world that government investigators had found nearly USD700 million (RM2.6 billion) deposited into Najib’s personal accounts in AmBank in March 2013, just before the 13th General Elections.

Lim reiterated that it was long overdue for Najib to give a detailed explanation about the various financial scandals.

Those who had advised Najib to avoid giving a full and detailed explanation about the scandals, continued Lim, had not only committed major strategic errors but done a grave disservice to him. “Most unfortunately, those who have ascended to new influence to deal with these two issues are people of such inclination – most notably the newly-minted Barisan Nasional Strategic Communications Director Abdul Rahman Dahlan.”