Musa: Ramli Yusuff has political backing to be PDRM’s ‘white knight’

Musa said Ramli was being provided a platform from which to attack him. — File pic

PETALING JAYA, Dec 10 ― Tan Sri Musa Hassan suggested today that unnamed political figures were backing his critic and former colleague, Datuk Ramli Yusuff, in the latter’s public war of words with him.

According to the former Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Ramli had been given the platform to criticise him and paint the Royal Malaysia Police (PDRM) in good light.

“It seems like he’s the white knight, saviour of PDRM ... while I’m the black knight who is destroying PDRM,” Musa told a press conference here.

Replying to a question by a reporter on how Ramli could have amassed wealth while only holding the post of Commercial Crimes Investigation Department (CCID) director, Musa had said that Ramli “would have some links somewhere”.

“He should answer to the public ... how he possess so much riches and wealth,” declared Musa.

Musa also accused outspoken former Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) advisory panel member Tan Sri Robert Phang of abusing his authority by transferring a senior police officer in order to speed up the deployment of a project backed by the latter.

“(Phang) threatened the officer: if you don’t commission (this project), you will be transferred in 24 hours.

“If someone from the public can threaten a policeman ... he must have powers in the police force,” Musa claimed.

The alleged project was a 2009 upgrade of the analogue communications system used by PDRM to a digital Motorola system, which Musa said was worth hundreds of millions of ringgit.

He described the officer transferred as an expert in communications, ranking “higher than Assistant Chief Police (ACP)”, a Datuk, and still an active member of the force.

Musa said he was only revealing this now in response to Phang’s allegation that the ex-IGP is backed by crime syndicates.

“I don’t want to shame others, but people are shaming me ... (But) this is not a retaliation,” he added.

Musa had last week maintained he never abused his authority during his 41 years in the police force despite Ramli’s persistent claim that he had colluded with the country’s top lawyer to escape charges linking him to Johor’s underworld.

The retired IGP said he has done nothing wrong and offered to subject himself to questioning by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) to clear his name.

Ramli, a former director with the CCID, has repeatedly accused the ex-IGP of having close ties with Chinese vice syndicates while serving as Johor police chief.

The former colleague-turned-vocal critic recently rekindled the 2006 rumours that had linked Musa to Goh Cheng Poh, an underworld figure nicknamed “Tengku Goh” and said to be a Johor mob boss, after the ex-IGP raised a stink last week over the executive’s purported interference with police work.

Court documents filed by the alleged mobster and made public in a sensational trial in August 2007 had fuelled speculation of a special relationship with Musa, who had by then succeeded Tan Sri Mohammed Bakri Omar as IGP for nearly a year.

In his affidavit, Goh was reported to have said: “I believe the IGP was not informed of my arrest and detention”.

Musa had also been investigated by the anti-graft agency on suspicion of involvement with three members of an illegal gambling syndicate shortly after his promotion to IGP in September 2006, but Attorney-General (A-G) Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail was reported to have ordered the investigation file closed in July 2007 due to lack of evidence.