MACC says Mohd Noor all for charging black eye duo

The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) has denied that former Court of Appeal judge Mohd Noor Abdullah was appointed to chair its Complaints Committee as a ‘reward' for clearing attorney-general Abdul Gani Patail and former inspector-general of police Musa Hassan of wrongdoing in the infamous black-eye incident.

Its chairperson Abu Kassim Mohamed (right) said in a statement today that Mohd Noor was in fact in favour of pressing charges against the duo over their alleged involvement in PKR de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim's 1998 ‘black-eye incident'.

However, he said Mohd Noor was overruled by the two other members of the independent panel set up to probe the case, who were former Federal Court judge Abdul Kadir Sulaiman and former Court of Appeal judge Mohd Noor Ahmad.

"By majority decision, the panel had not endorsed any charges because the statement of the key witness kept changing and was inconsistent," he said in a statement today.

Abu Kassim was responding to the case's investigation officer MatZin Ibrahim's statement on Thursday, in which he claimed that Mohd Noor had ruled against pressing charges and was thus ‘rewarded' with his posting in one of MACC's oversight committees.

Therefore, Mat Zin said, the public should not expect Gani to presssedition charges against Mohd Noor for his speech last week, where he among others have warned the Malaysian Chinese of abacklash against them for "betraying" the Malays in the recent general election.

In addition, Abu Kassim said Gani had no power over the choice of MACC Complaints Committee members, who are appointed by a minister by virtue of Section 15 of the MACC Act 2009.

"Mohd Noor's (left) appointment to head the committee was done in his capacity as a former member of the judiciary and has vast knowledge and experience in legal matters," he said.

Anwar had lodged a report to with the police and the then Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA) in July 2008, claiming that Gani and Musa had fabricated evidence in the ‘black-eye incident investigations.

MACC took over the investigations from ACA when it replaced the latter, and formed a panel to look into Anwar's report in the following month, in which Mohd Noor was a member.