Money changed hands over Pulau Batu Puteh, claims ex-CID chief

Former Kuala Lumpur CID chief Datuk Mat Zain Ibrahim today revealed that money changed hands, which led to Malaysia losing its claim on Pulau Batu Puteh to Singapore in 2007.

That revelation was made in Mat Zain's 31-page statutory declaration sent to the Prime Minister's Office on October 9.

"In the accompanying letter to the Prime Minister, I urged him to focus on paragraph 54 (e),(f) and (g) of the SD , which revealed the wrongdoings of Attorney-General Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail, who handled the Pulau Batu Puteh case.

"Also included was information that a large amount of money changed hands and was credited into a bank account in Hong Kong," said Mat Zain.

He also defended his earlier allegation that Abdul Gani was the reason that Malaysia lost the case which was heard at the International Court of Justice in 2007.

In his SD, Mat Zain claimed that Abdul Gani had intentionally lost the case.

"Studies made on the ICJ proceeding notes showed that a 'controversial photograph' was added in a few days before the case was heard, which can be seen as trying to dupe the ICJ panel," said Mat Zain.

Putrajaya had denied the claim that Malaysia lost its claim on Pulau Batu Puteh due to a wrong photograph of the location of the island submitted by Abdul Gani in the proceedings.

"The AG did not head the case and did not have the final say on the handling of the case," said Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Nancy Shukri in Parliament last week.

"So the allegations that the AG had shown a wrong photograph as claimed by the opposition leader (Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim) is baseless and made without any verification."

Mat Zain said if the SD had been made public before the Umno party polls last month, it would have affected Sabah Umno representatives who contested, adding there was a link between Abdul Gani and politicians in the state.

Mat Zain urged Putrajaya to appeal the ICJ decision on the Pulau Batu Puteh case for the sake of the country's honour.

"We still have four and a half years more to file an appeal to ICJ if there was enough evidence to do so.

"No matter how slim our chances are, we cannot let it go just like that," the former Kuala Lumpur CID chief stressed.

It was previously reported that on August 10, Mat Zain met former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, Umno lawyer Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, former Commercial Crimes Investigation Department director Datuk Ramli Yusoff and Dr Mahathir's former political secretary Matthias Chang.

Their discussion reportedly centred on Abdul Gani's alleged wrongdoings, including fabrication of evidence in the infamous "black eye" incident of 1998 involving former deputy prime minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.

Mat Zain, then the investigating officer in that case, reportedly informed Dr Mahathir that Abdul Gani, then a senior deputy public prosecutor, had fabricated evidence to suggest that Anwar's injury was self-inflicted.

Mat Zain also claimed that Abdul Gani deliberately lost the Pulau Batu Puteh case.

Following the meeting, Mat Zain released his SD with copies to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak, Chief Secretary to the Government Tan Sri Dr Ali Hamsa, Solicitor General Datuk Idris Harun and Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar.

Part of the contents of the SD was made public by Mat Zain earlier this month after he expressed his disappointment with Putrajaya for not acting on the revelations.