Azalina: Muhyiddin shows he’s in coup plot
Talk of charge sheet even before investigation began is proof of conspiracy, says minister.
Reports about a purported charge sheet against Najib Razak were cited yesterday as proof of Muhyiddin Yassin’s involvement in a conspiracy to topple the prime minister.
Umno Supreme Council member Azalina Othman said the fact that Muhyiddin had said he had been briefed by Gani Patail when both were in office was an admission of a high-level conspiracy against Najib.
Muhyiddin spoke about the briefing in a statement on Saturday after the Umno Supreme Council suspended his position as deputy president. He said he had been shown evidence about “a criminal act” regarding funds linked to 1Malaysia Development Bhd.
The briefing by Gani, then Attorney-General, was made last year when Muhyiddin was still deputy prime minister in Najib’s cabinet.
In a response to Muhyiddin’s statement, Azalina said: “The fact that a sitting attorney-general was privately briefing and sharing classified legal information with Tan Sri Muhyiddin, a member of Cabinet and Umno member who clearly had vested interests, is not only
unethical but also a breach of the Official Secrets Act.”
Azalina also raised the issue of a purported charge sheet said to have been drafted by the attorney-general’s Chambers to bring criminal charges against Najib over the affairs of 1Malaysia Development Bhd.
She questioned the veracity of the charge sheet, pointing out that an investigation had not even begun at the time.
Azalina, who is a minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, said: “How could the attorney-general have had sufficient ‘proof’ to charge the prime minister then, when an investigation had not even been launched.
“A charge sheet was said to be drawn up in May 2015 – before the so-called Special Task Force was formed, before the investigation was started in June 2015, and certainly before the Prime Minister was interviewed in December 2015 by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission. This proves that there was a conspiracy.”
She also raised doubts about the Wall Street Journal reports on the matter, asking if the newspaper had relied on the same so-called proof in order to make “all sorts of sensational allegations” against Najib.
Azalina pointed out that a charge sheet was usually the final step in the standard procedure for investigations: allegations followed by investigation and finally a charge sheet is drawn up.
She accused Muhyiddin of not only breaching the Official Secrets Act, but of being “complicit in a politically-motivated conspiracy to manipulate and abuse our legal system in order to overthrow a democratically elected Prime Minister”.
She also questioned Muhyiddin’s motive for speaking up after his suspension as Umno deputy president and speculated that he could be regarded as an accessory to a crime by not reporting an alleged criminal act.
