Mahathir’s last desperate attempt to save his son

By MT Webmaster Last updated Feb 21, 2016

Dr Mahathir is very worried that another of his sons may be made to face charges of insider trading. And he knows that his son cannot escape as easily as he did in 1990 by just signing a letter and plead ignorance of the law. Therefore, Dr Mahathir is going all out to attack the credibility of the Attorney General so that later he can say that Apandi is a half-past-six AG.

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said that all those who are living beyond their means should be investigated (READ HERE). Actually, Malaysia Today said the same thing ten years ago back in 2006 when it was revealed that the Khairy Jamaluddin had bought 13 million ECM Libra shares for RM9.2 million. (That is worth about RM12.6 million today).

There is more to this story, though, because ECM Libra was going to merge with Avenue Capital Resources Bhd to become Malaysia’s largest investment bank and Khairy’s father-in-law, Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, was the Finance Minister cum Prime Minister. So there is an element of conflict of interest here.

However, that is another issue. What we want to talk about here is what Dr Mahathir said today about investigating those who are living beyond their means. Khairy said that he borrowed the RM9.2 million from a bank to buy those 13 million ECM Libra shares.

But then Khairy never published the documents to prove it. He just said he borrowed the money. How do we know he did that? How do we know he did not steal the money or that the money came from bribes because we know he does not have RM9.2 million?

And Khairy did not do what Dr Mahathir has asked the Attorney General, Mohd Apandi Ali, to do: swear on the Qur’an that he did not steal the money or that the money did not come from bribes and that he, in fact, borrowed the money from a bank.

If the issue about living beyond your means comes to question then the government should have investigated how Mirzan Mahathir managed to own Konsortium Perkapalan Berhad? The company eventually accumulated debts of RM1.7 billion and Petronas was asked to bail out the company to save his son. So that comes to yet another conflict of interest since this was done when Dr Mahathir was the Prime Minister.

It is very tiring to hear Dr Mahathir preaching about what should be done and what should not be done and about him asking people to swear on the Qur’an if they are innocent of any crime.

Why did Dr Mahathir give Libyan-American Sadeq Mustaffa RM440 million to set up InventQjaya Sdn Bhd?

Why did Dr Mahathir grant Indah Water Konsortium a concession to manage the national sewerage system and gave them RM1.4 billion on top of that?

Why did Dr Mahathir not sell Malaysian Airlines System (MAS) through an open tender instead of giving it to Tajuddin Ramli who had no knowledge whatsoever about running an airline? And why did Dr Mahathir buy back MAS at RM8.00 a share when the shares were being traded at only RM3.60?

Why did Dr Mahathir bail out Time Dotcom Bhd, which had debts of RM5 billion? Furthermore, why did Dr Mahathir bail out Time Dotcom Bhd using RM904 million from Kumpulan Wang Amanah Pencen thereby incurring an instant loss of RM280 million? And did Dr Mahathir not also ask EPF to buy 81.6 million Time Dotcom shares at RM3.30 when the shares were being traded lower hereby incurring a loss of RM100 million?

Why did Dr Mahathir bail out Projek Usahasama Transit Ringan Automatik Sdn Bhd (Putra), which belonged to Renong, and Sistem Transit Aliran Ringan Sdn Bhd (Star) using almost RM600 million of EPF’s money and which resulted in EPF having to write off RM135 million with a share loss of RM96 million?

Why did Dr Mahathir award a RM24.3 billion contract to PSC Industries Berhad together with an advance of more than RM2.5 billion to build naval patrol boats?

The list can go on and on but it is beginning to become very tedious listing down the hundreds of ‘why did Dr Mahathir yada, yada, yada’. Did Dr Mahathir ever prove he was not guilty of any wrongdoing or swear on the Qur’an that he is innocent?

The point is Dr Mahathir preaches and moralises whereas when he was Prime Minister for 22 years he was even more blatant in his abuse of power and the money he lost through his misadventures — if they were misadventures in the first place and not acts of corruption. But then at that time we were not allowed to question what he did the way he is questioning others today.

And when the allegations were made and he was asked to explain his actions we never said he was guilty until and unless he can prove his innocence. We accepted the doctrine that someone is innocent until and unless it has been proven that that person is guilty.

However, when it comes to others, Dr Mahathir says they are guilty until and unless they can prove their innocence. And Dr Mahathir wants people to prove their innocence and to swear on the Qur’an that they are innocent.

Even when there is evidence that Dr Mahathir has committed a crime he merely writes a letter admitting what he did (since he cannot deny it any longer any way) and then says that he was not aware that what he did was a crime. The letter below shows how Dr Mahathir escapes punishment for crimes he has committed and where the evidence is very clear: he pleads ignorance of the law — whereas any first-year law student can tell you that ignorance of the law is no defence.

Actually Dr Mahathir should start worrying about himself. The police are investigating him for criminal defamation. Furthermore, Dr Mahathir is now heading an illegal society, Coalition of Umno Branch Chiefs Malaysia (GKCM), which is not registered with the Registrar of Societies (Ros).

Secret societies are not treated lightly in Malaysia and they can even detain you without trial for that. The GKCM is supposed to be a movement of Umno branch leaders. Actually most of them are ex-branch leaders, not branch leaders, save only a few. So that in itself is misleading.

Maybe Muhyiddin Yassin and Shafie Apdal are branch leaders but as for the rest they are all has-beens. And there are more than 20,000 Umno branches so what is one or two gulungan kecewa in the GKCM?

Raja Petra Kamarudin RPK