Khairul’s brilliant pre-emptive strike against the three Tan Sri
It was supposed to be a three-punch knockout. First the 20th July announcement in the US. Then the joint-press conference by the three Tan Sri on 26th July followed by Mahathir’s press conference in Jakarta an hour later. Finally the Bersih 5.0 rally. And with that Najib was going to be history. However, as fate would have it, that did not happen and we will tell you why.
THE CORRIDORS OF POWER
Raja Petra Kamarudin
(Bernama) – Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak said he will continue to persevere in carrying out his duties as the nation’s number one leader despite facing various challenges and pressures from within and outside the country.
“There’s nothing, all are as usual… I must be ‘istiqamah’ (committed) to my duties and responsibilities whether as the Pekan Member of Parliament or the Prime Minister to safeguard the interests of more than 30 million Malaysians,” he said.
Najib said this when asked to comment on the various challenges and pressures he faced since lately, including on the issue of 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), which was raised by the United States Department of Justice.
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That was Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak’s Hari Raya message to 31.5 million Malaysians. To sum up what Najib said, basically he will not be pushed out of office never mind if they throw everything including the kitchen sink at him.
So there you are. If you want to oust Najib then you need to try harder and do it smarter than what you have been doing since 2014. And this message is important and a very apt response to those who are already gloating that, due to the 20th July 2016 announcement by the US Justice Department and the US Attorney General, Najib is already packing his bags to go into retirement.
If you believe that then you believe in the tooth fairy and Santa Claus.
Malaysia Today has been writing at length regarding the two-year attempt to oust Najib with a series of attacks that started with Khairuddin Abu Hassan’s December 2014 police report against 1MDB, meaning against Najib as well.
The latest series of attacks on the First Anniversary of the 29th July 2015 coup attempt — that failed and ended up with Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin’s and Attorney General Abdul Gani Patail’s heads instead — started with the 20th July 2016 press conference by the US Justice Department and the US Attorney General.
This was supposed to have been followed six days later by the joint-press conference — by outgoing Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) chief Abu Kassim Mohamed, former Attorney-General Abdul Gani Patail, and former Bank Negara governor Dr Zeti Akhtar Aziz — during Abu Kassim’s farewell dinner on 26th July 2016. This press conference was supposed to talk about the announcement by the US Justice Department and the US Attorney General and the three were supposed to ask for Najib to step down as Prime Minister.
One hour later, in Jakarta, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad was supposed to also hold a press conference with the international media and he, too, would demand Najib’s resignation based on the 20th July announcement by the US and the joint-press conference by the three Tan Sri an hour earlier.
Then Bersih 5.0 would he held whereby chaos and turmoil are supposed to explode on the streets of Kuala Lumpur and this would be the catalyst for Najib to exit Seri Perdana, just like what happened to Tunku Abdul Rahman on the aftermath of May 13 in 1969.
All had been beautifully planned and only five people knew of this plan — Mahathir himself, the three Tan Sri, and Tun Daim Zainuddin. This was to avoid morons with itchy mouths from spilling the beans and letting the cat out of the bag.
But what they had not anticipated was that the Umno Youth Deputy, Khairul Azwan Harun, would pre-empt the 26th July after-dinner joint-press conference by the three Tan Sri by lodging a police report at 1.00pm that same day. And this, basically, would open Abu Kassim, Gani and Zeti to the prospect of charges of espionage and treason for their act of giving Malaysian government secrets to a foreign power.
Other than pre-empting the move by the three Tan Sri, Khairul also laid a trap that would snare them if they walked into it. So now the press conference had to be aborted or else Abu Kassim, Gani and Zeti would prove what Khairul reported to the police.
When Mahathir received that phone call soon after Khairul’s police report he turned pale and panicked. How could they find out so fast about what was going to happen that night? Mahathir tried to phone the three Tan Sri but none of them dared take the call. In fact, they blocked Mahathir’s number because they realised that if the police launch an investigation the police will know that Mahathir has been communicating with them.
Mahathir then phoned Daim who sheepishly admitted that he had told Kadir Jasin about the plan. So that was where the leak came from. Mahathir was pissed big time with Kadir. Mahathir said he had wasted two years of his life and hundreds of millions in the move to oust Najib — even sent the three Tan Sri to meet the US authorities — only to be torpedoed at the eleventh hour by Kadir’s moronic big mouth.
When Kadir heard about Mahathir’s outburst he was quite shaken. He tried to phone Mahathir to explain what happened but the old man refused to speak to him. Kadir then called Daim and asked him to intervene.
Daim explained to Mahathir that he needed to confide in Kadir and reveal the plan because he needed Kadir to manage the media coordination and Daim could not do that himself because it was a complicated process and he does not know how to do it. So he needed Kadir’s help for that, as it was a very tight deadline and something that needed to be organised at least a day in advance.
It was not a simple matter, explained Daim. First they had to contact the main players in the media to inform them that around 11.00pm the following day, 26th July 2016, there was going to be an important bit of news for dissemination related to the 20th July 2016 US announcement. After booking that news slot, they needed someone to video-record the joint-press conference of the three Tan Sri that same evening and get it delivered to the media agencies straight away.
It is well known that most foreign intelligence services have their operators and key people embedded in the main news and media agencies, which is considered standard operating procedure. Hence when Kadir contacted a number of media people a day ahead of the event things would invariably get picked up by the foreign intelligence services. And obviously one of them would definitely tip off Najib’s office, which would be beyond Kadir’s control.
Furthermore, to get the press interested and to ensure they attend the press conference, Kadir had to inform them that it had something to do with the 20th July 2016 announcement by the US Justice Department and the US Attorney General and that an announcement regarding that would be made on the evening of 26th July 2016. And that would certainly trigger some alarm bells.
Once something ‘exciting’ like that is spread within no time at all Najib’s Boffin Boys would get to hear about it. And all they had to do was to ‘triangulate’ that information and find out what was going to happen on the evening of 26th July 2016. And what was going to happen on the evening of 26th July 2016 was Abu Kassim’s farewell dinner.
So this meant something was going to happen at Abu Kassim’s farewell dinner and that something is related to the 20th July 2016 announcement by the US Justice Department and the US Attorney General. And the Boffin Boys also found out that Mahathir was in Jakarta and he, too, was going to hold a press conference with the international media one hour later or around midnight Malaysian time.
And that was when the pre-emptive strike cum trap was launched. Khairul lodged his police report the morning of 26th July and the plane was destroyed even as it was still taxiing on the runaway and even before it could take off. It was like watching a scene from ‘Pearl Harbour’ all over again with Faith Hill singing the theme song, ‘There You’ll Be’, in the background.
Anyway, that scuttled the joint-press conference planned for Abu Kassim’s farewell dinner that same night followed by Mahathir’s press conference in Jakarta one hour later. And that scuttled the Bersih 5.0 rally that was supposed to be held after that to trigger chaos and turmoil on the streets of Kuala Lumpur.
At 5.00pm, Abu Kassim went to the Prime Minister’s office and tried to meet Najib but his request was denied. He was trying to do some damage control but Najib was not prepared to give him the time of day. According to my deep throat in the MACC, Abu Kassim then contacted one of his loyalists in the Prime Minister’s office, Ahmad Farid Ridzuan, to ask for help to smoothen things out with Najib — who turned loyalist last year when the MACC raided his office
Nevertheless, it was clear that things had turned out badly and not what the three Tan Sri or Mahathir had expected. The fact that Gani chickened out and did not attend the farewell dinner while Abu Kassim ran to the Prime Minister’s office to mitigate what was turning into a disaster showed that they were gripped in panic. And it was all because of Khairul’s police report before noon of 26th July 2016.
