Putrajaya says will probe claims against A-G
By Shazwan Mustafa Kamal, The Malaysian Insider
The Cabinet will look into the various claims of negligence against Attorney-General Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail before taking any further action.
Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz said today he would refer the claims against the A-G to the Cabinet as soon as possible after the Dewan Rakyat rejected DAP MP Lim Kit Siang’s motion to deduct RM10 from Abdul Gani’s salary for “failure to discharge his duties.”
In his motion today, Lim cited to a large extent the open testimony of former Kuala Lumpur Crime Investigation Department chief Datuk Mat Zain Ibrahim who accused several prominent government figures of meddling with evidence in Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim “black eye” incident.
The Ipoh Timur MP tabled the motion at the Supply Bill 2011 committee stage debate.
“Abdul Gani stands accused of fabricating evidence in Anwar Ibrahim’s black eye investigation in 1998. It stands unrebutted although made by the police officer responsible for the investigation 12 years ago,” said Lim.
Lim then read out excerpts from an email he had received from Mat Zain defending his credibility.
Mat Zain had been accused of fabricating evidence relating to the “black eye” incident, together with Abdul Gani and former Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Musa Hassan (while he was senior investigation officer in 1998).
In July 2008, Anwar had filed a police report accusing Abdul Gani, Musa, one Dr Abdul Rahman Yusof and Mat Zain of falsifying a medical report on his “black eye” case, and this was later investigated by the then-Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA).
The authorities later cleared Musa and Abdul Gani of the allegations, but the status of Mat Zain and Abdul Rahman remained uncertain.
Lim went on to accuse the government of inaction, claiming that despite continuous pressure by “many parties” the Home Ministry had failed to provide a “satisfactory” reply on the matter.
“I’m shocked that Home Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin (Hussein) did not reply to me at all on Mat Zain’s damning indictment of the criminal justice system and when I asked him why there was no response him when he sat down at the end of his two-hour-long winding-up speech, he gave an outrageous reply that I never raised the matter in my two-hour speech.
“Either the home minister was dishonest or had been deceived by his officers, which means the home minister is not the master of his ministry,” said Lim, alleging that this was a cover-up of the “biggest scandal” in the history of the country’s criminal justice.
Besides that, Lim demanded an answer as to why the A-G had decided to close all investigations on private investigator P. Balasubramaniam’s conflicting statutory declarations (SDs) concerning the high-profile trial of murdered Mongolian Altantuya Shaariibuu.
Balasubramaniam has since dared the A-G to press charges against him for crossing the law, in a bid to keep alive investigations into the Altantuya murder.
Better known as PI Bala, the detective resurfaced recently to write an open letter to Abdul Gani asking to be taken to court for making a false SD two years ago implicating prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak and his family.
