Khairuddin Abu Hassan is unfazed despite ruffling some powerful feathers in Umno with his police report against the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).
"I am not worried at all because I believe in my struggle for the truth,” he stressed.
"I have never feared any leader, my fear is only for Allah who is the source of my strength," he told Malaysiakini in an interview.
The Batu Kawan Umno deputy chief was responding to a question on whether he is worried of being slapped with a legal threat by Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak similar to DAP’s Tony Pua over the latter’s criticism of 1MDB.
Pua had accused the premier of creating "the mother of all scandals" with 1MDB, which is wholly owned by the Finance Ministry, which Najib also helms.
'Apple polishing Najib to death'
Despite the brickbats from Umno, Khairuddin insisted that he was merely "helping" Najib and accused certain party leaders of trying to oust the prime minister.
He said Najib was "human" and it was the responsibility of Umno leaders around him to alert the prime minister with regard to his mistakes but they are not doing so.
"I would like to tell certain Umno leaders, people like me are not the ones who want to bring down the Umno president.
"The people who want to bring down the prime minister and kill him (politically) are certain top Umno leaders who are apple-polishers,” he said.
"They make the prime minister careless and complacent. They are the ones who want to kill the prime minister's political career," he added.
In contrast, Khairuddin said his action had courted positive response from party supporters as the controversy surrounding 1MDB had also affected Umno's reputation as the senior member of the ruling coalition.
He said many Umno grassroots leaders feared raising the 1MDB issue as they might become entangled in legal issues.
"If we want to take up this issue, we need detailed research. No one would dare take this up like I do if there is no concrete proof," he said.
Missing links - blame the Chinese again? How about Rosmah's son?
Khairuddin said he is looking into the "missing links" with regard to 1MDB who he claimed might be "remote controlling" the sovereign wealth fund.
Asked if he was referring to Penang-born billionaire Low Teik Jho whose name had cropped up repeatedly in 1MDB, the Umno man declined to elaborate.
"I have a surprise in store, so I don't want to pre-empt it yet. I will reveal the surprise in future," he said.
Better known as Jho Low, the billionaire who is seen to be close to Najib's family, had repeatedly denied benefitting from 1MDB but admitted to facilitating deals which involved the sovereign wealth fund.
Khairuddin in his police report listed out a series of deals by 1MDB including those involving excessive overpayments.
1MDB, in a statement responding to Khairuddin, stressed that there was no legal basis to his police report and that it would be an opportunity to rebut "malicious claims".
'Threat to rattle Umno leaders'
Meanwhile, Khairuddin said he would accept the outcome of the investigation with "an open heart" but expected Najib to be more responsive to issues concerning 1MDB from now on.
Failing which, he warned of a move that would "rattle" the Umno leadership, but declined to elaborate.
"We are taking a wait and see approach, we want to see how responsive is the top leadership.
"If they continue to be complacent and careless and do not take this issue seriously, we have another plan and god willing, it will rattle them all," he said.
Khairuddin said Najib should emulate former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad on the matter.
"As prime minister, you must have the ability to oversee and exercise control over companies under the Finance Ministry like Mahathir did before.
"Who dared to lie to Mahathir? He would know everything. that is the quality of a prime minister," he said.
Asked if Khairuddin was alluding that Najib was being lied to, he replied: "I dare not comment on that but I sincerely and humbly appeal to the prime minister who is also finance minister to pay attention to 1MDB.”
"Do some in depth research on 1MDB's positon for the sake of the rakyat, government and Umno's interest," he added.
In the first part of the interview published yesterday, Khairuddin had denied that Mahathir was behind him. - Mkini
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