Azmin to be hit by FAC scandal?

Popular blogger Raja Petra claims that revelations about alleged financial irregularities involving the Free Anwar Campaign are set to embarrass PKR deputy president.

PETALING JAYA: The silent spat between PKR deputy president Azmin Ali and Selangor Menteri Besar Khalid Ibrahim’s political aide Faekah Husin is set to simmer further with both parties working on their whispering campaigns to seriously undermine the other.

Popular blogger Raja Petra Kamarudin, in his latest blog posting in Malaysia Today, claimed that Azmin, having failed to have Faekah sacked from PKR during the party’s political bureau meeting last week, has now embarked upon questioning Faekah’s sexual orientation.

“They [Azmin's camp] are ‘whispering’ that Faekah is a lesbian and that her partner is a lady doctor.

“This is actually a very old story and not even a story for that matter. Everyone knows that these two single girls are sharing a house. But that does not make them lesbians, as what Azmin’s boys are trying to suggest,” said Raja Petra.

And he said that Faekah was not taking the personal attacks on her quietly.

“She is fighting back. Her ‘team’ is talking about the large sums of money Azmin has been [allegedly] siphoning out in the name of the party as well as in the name of the Free Anwar Campaign (FAC) over the last 12 years since 2000. And they are talking about millions,” he said.

He added that although the story was not new and that he had written about it in the past, “Faekah’s ‘gurkhas’ are resurrecting this story in light of the recent Suaram and Malaysiakini exposé, which more or less involved the same people”.

Raja Petra, the founder of FAC, said that he knew about how certain leaders in PKR had made use of the campaign to “collect millions” for themselves.

He added that he was only paid RM3,000 to run the campaign – RM1,000 from Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail and RM2,000 from Anwar’s brother, Rosli, while the others were using FAC’s name to enrich themselves.

He also said that one particular Anwar Ibrahim aide had misrepresented himself as a FAC director in London to arrange “financing” for the FAC.

Trusted aides

“Millions changed hands but not a cent went to the FAC,” he said, adding that there were a number of other occasions when FAC’s name was used to raise a lot of money.

He claimed that Anwar was aware of these but had chosen not to do anything.

Raja Petra said he closed down FAC on the day Anwar was released from jail on Sept 2, 2004.

“I closed down the FAC not because of the money but because Anwar had been released from jail and I wanted to focus on Malaysia Today, which I had launched two weeks earlier,” he said.

He claimed that Azmin was involved in the scheme to collect money using the FAC’s name, and that Faekah’s camp was going to expose that in her battle against the PKR deputy president.

As a result of that, he said, many of Anwar’s trusted aides, including PKR’s top leaders, an MP and a state exco person, were going to get implicated as they too were involved in the so-called “fundraising” which did not trickle back to the party.

Raja Petra had named the individuals who were allegedly involved in the FAC scandal in his article.

He also claimed that party president Wan Azizah and vice-president Nurul Izzah Anwar knew about the transgression.

“But will they tell the truth once this issue explodes or will they act dumb and pretend they know nothing about what Azmin and gang did and the millions they raised and pocketed in the name of the FAC?” he asked.