BN spinning facts into fiction, says Dr Mahathir’s lawyer

PETALING JAYA: Haniff Khatri Abdullah has gone on a tirade over a statement from Barisan Nasional’s Eric See-To on the findings of the Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) on Bank Negara Malaysia’s (BNM) foreign exchange trading losses in the 1990s.

Referring to the BN strategic communications deputy director’s questioning of why Mahathir and then finance minister Anwar Ibrahim had not wanted a RCI in the 1990s, Haniff, who is former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s lawyer, said the very question was part of the propaganda perpetrated by the current government.

“See-To’s statement can be dismissed as being the government propaganda army’s style of spinning facts into conniving fiction and spinning fiction into conniving facts.

“The fact is that Mahathir resigned in 2003 and Najib Razak became prime minister in 2009. Why is See-To ignoring the fact that Najib remained blind, deaf and mute on the forex issue for the last eight years?” Haniff asked.

In his statement yesterday, See-To posed the question to Pakatan Harapan leaders who had accused the timing of the RCI as being politically-motivated coming just months before the next general election (GE14).

“You could not do the RCI 13 years ago as Mahathir was still fully in charge.

“If Pakatan really must question why an RCI was not conducted 23 years ago, you should ask your Pakatan chairman Mahathir and de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim why. Because they were in charge then,” See-To said.

Haniff said the RCI was rushed through in the past 10 months because Mahathir is the biggest critic of 1MDB since 2014.

He then reiterated how the Special Task Force on the forex losses was set up in February and the RCI was set up in July 2017, with proceedings held over nine days in August and September, and the report then submitted to the King in October.

“Now, another Special Task Force is set up just one day after a police report was lodged by the Secretary of the RCI, which itself was lodged one day after the RCI Report was tabled in Parliament.

“Why all these rush after waiting more then 27 years, if not for the conniving and dishonest purpose to mislead the public before the next general election (GE14)?” he asked.

Haniff also repeated the accusation he made yesterday over the RCI omitting 495 pages of material provided by Mahathir’s legal team from the final report submitted to the King and tabled in Parliament on Thursday.

“Why mislead the Palace, Parliament and the public by this intentional dishonest conduct which would deprive any reasonable man the opportunity to determine if the content of the RCI Report was a fair reflection of the facts, evidence, arguments adduced in the proceedings?”

Haniff then turned the tables on the government, and compared the probe into the RM2.6 billion deposited into Najib’s personal accounts with the RCI.

“Najib was cleared by Attorney-General Mohamed Apandi Ali over RM2.6 billion in his private account, from which it was ‘found’ that Najib had returned RM2.03 billion back to the ‘purported’ donor.

“Yet this RCI did not make any finding that the ‘purported’ losses of RM31.5 billion was ever pocketed by anyone.

“Why then should the government not set up an RCI on 1MDB and/or RM2.6 billion issue?” he asked. -FMT