KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 17 — Malaysia’s longest-serving prime minister, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, had admitted in his memoirs to interfering in police investigations into the alleged sexual dalliances linked to his one-time deputy, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, a former senior policeman said today.
In his open letter, ex-Kuala Lumpur CID chief Datuk Mat Zain Ibrahim questioned Home Minister Datuk Hishammuddin Hussein’s decision to keep out of an ongoing spat between two former senior crime busters — Tan Sri Musa Hassan and Datuk Ramli Yusuff — which is seen to be jeopardising public confidence in the police force.
“If exposed that Tun Mahathir (picture)himself had deliberately or otherwise admitted in writing that it was true he had interfered in police investigations related to the ‘50 Dalil’ [50 Reasons] book, what would be the response from Hishammuddin or the prime minister?” Mat Zain said in his letter to incumbent Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Ismail Omar, which was also copied to Hishammuddin and PM Datuk Seri Najib Razak.
“It is hoped Hishammuddin will not say that the matter was a personal matter between Tun Mahathir and Musa Hassan and he refuses to interfere too,” he added.
The retired policeman alleged that Dr Mahathir had revealed in his autobiography, “A Doctor in the House”, published last year, that he had a direct hand in police investigations related to a book titled “50 Dalil Mengapa Anwar Tidak Boleh Jadi Perdana Menteri” [50 Reasons Why Anwar Cannot Be Prime Minister] that concerned the then-deputy prime minister’s purported sexual liaisons with several men and women, including prostitutes.
“He had confidently given a guarantee that he will direct the police to bring the witnesses to Sri Perdana once again, if the chief ministers and mentris besar as well as state Umno liaison chairmen wanted to interview them.”
Malaysia’s fourth prime minister wrote that he had first been told about Anwar’s alleged homosexual activities in the early 1990s by then police chief Tun Hanif Omar.
Dr Mahathir, who ruled from 1981 to 2003, said he was then given the book “50 Dalil Kenapa Anwar IBrahim Tidak Boleh Jadi Perdana Menteri” but had initially dismissed it as a sensationalist attempt to make money.
He said in 1997 Ummi Hafilda Ali, sister of PKR deputy president Azmin Ali, sent him a letter with specific allegations of sodomy against Anwar.
The former prime minister said he interviewed the girls who told him they were taken to have sex with his then deputy, who was later charged and jailed for sodomy and corruption.
Dr Mahathir wrote that they were persuaded to do so by an Indian man they knew as Nalla, likely to be Datuk K.S. Nallakarupan, then a close associate of Anwar who has since fallen out with the opposition leader.
Dr Mahathir said he then called Umno leaders including mentris besar and chief ministers to Sri Perdana to brief them about Anwar’s alleged affairs and showed them pictures of the witnesses.
Mat Zain said today that the former prime minister’s statements in the book were “clear proof that not only did he interfere in investigations, but also gave certain orders that were not appropriate to Musa Hassan, until it is believed influenced the overall outcome of the investigations”.
He also said that former IGP Musa should have “objected to and stopped Tun Mahathir being given access to the witnesses and prostitutes... because Tun Mahathir had a personal interest in the investigation and the outcome of the investigation on the ‘50 Dalil’ book, as the then Umno president, home minister and prime minister”.
Now the parliamentary opposition leader, Anwar was found guilty of corruption in 1999 and sodomy the next year.
He was jailed for six years before the Federal Court overturned his conviction for sodomy.
Four years later, he led the opposition pact to record gains in the March 2008 general election, denying Barisan Nasional its customary two-thirds majority in Parliament and seizing five states.
Anwar was acquitted of sodomy for the second time in his political career earlier this year, nearly three years after his former aide Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan first claimed to be the Permatang Pauh MP’s victim.
Mat Zain, who shot to prominence in 1998 as the investigating officer during Anwar’s infamous “black eye” incident in the Sodomy I case, has repeatedly hinted at political interference from the country’s executive arm of government in police operations and involving the offices of the IGP as well as the Attorney-General.
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