No conspiracy to oust then IGP Musa, says ex-top cop

Former Commercial Crime Investigations Department (CCID) director Ramli Yusuff insists that there was no conspiracy on his part to bring down former inspector-general of police Musa Hassan.

According to Ramli, it was Musa who held a grudge against him and used a shady character, who was arrested in October 2006, to concoct lies against him when a number of top officers were vying for the post of deputy inspector-general of police.

The DIGP is second in line to the IGP, the supreme commander of the police force, a post which Musa was eyeing.

Ramli (left) said that in order to kill off his rivals, Musa accused other senior officers who were likely candidates for the DGIP's post of trying todamage his reputation.

"Musa used a person by the name of Moo Sai Chin, who was then held under the Emergency Ordinance, to defame me in 2006, saying Moo bribed me and several other police officers some eight years ago. This prompted the Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA) investigations.

"The irony is that although several police officers were allegedly named, I was the only one investigated, which led to charges being framed against me.

"I was said to be the RM27 million cop, with the ACA, Musa and the attorney-general using the media to implicate me. To say I was trying to pull down Musa by making all this allegations is inappropriate," Ramli told Malaysiakini in an exclusive interview

Moo was never produced by the ACA, which led the prosecution in Ramli's trial in Kuala Lumpur, to prove his claims that the then CCID chief was on the take.

This led to sessions court judge M Gunalan taking a dim view of the prosecution case and Gunalan went on to acquit and dischargeRamli without his defence being called.

Ramli explained that Musa worked under him in the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) for six years, and that he was responsible in promoting Musa twice.

Having spent most of his career with the CID, Ramli said, he even helped stop Musa's imminent transfer to Perlis as the officer-in-charge of the CID there after Musa pleaded against the transfer.

"Yet, despite all this, Musa (far right) conspired to fix me up. What evidence has Musa to say that all those against him were trying to fix him up?

"In fact, my men and I have evidence of Musa's wrongdoings when he was the Johor chief police officer and as IGP too, with some revelations made in the Copgate affair," he said.

In the first part of the Malaysiakini interview published yesterday, Ramli questioned Musa's claim that he did not know alleged crime kingpins Goh Cheng Poh or Tengku Goh, and BK Tan, who were said to be responsible in deciding, with Musa, the transfers of a number of key police officers.

Musa is also alleged to be behind controversial blog postings that implicated former internal security minister Johari Baharom, who had been directed by the cabinet to handle the Ah Long (illegal money lending) activities in the south of the peninsula.

Following investigations against Musa and Johari, the ACA cleared both the men.

'Musa stole Anwar's blood sample'

In the interview, Ramli revealed additional information relating to the police investigation into the first sodomy trial involving Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim, who was sacked as deputy prime minister in 1998.

"Like in my case, I want to ask Musa: what right does he have to fabricate evidence against somebody he dislikes?

"He stole Anwar's blood sample. He himself admitted he took the blood sample in the black-eye case for matching purposes, after Anwar was charged," Ramli said.

Former Kuala Lumpur CID chief Mat Zain Ibrahim, who was also present at the Malaysiakini interview, collaborated Ramli's story.

He said the discovery was made during the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Anwar's black-eye incident when a Hospital Kuala Lumpur doctor who examined Anwar complained to the RCI that Anwar's blood sample was missing.

Mat Zain was the investigating officer in the black-eye incident.

Musa had, in an interview with Malaysiakiniearlier this year, admitted that he took Anwar's blood sample.

Musa, who was the investigating officer in the sodomy case, at first said the blood sample was for a HIV test to be carried out after Anwar's wife Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail expressed her fear that her husband could being injected with the AIDS virus.

Later, when quizzed further in the Malaysiakini interview, the former IGP conceded that he took the blood sample for a DNA test to be done.

"Yes, I did use the blood for a DNA test. I used it to test it with the sample from the mattress," Musa revealed in the interview.

"I had to conduct a full investigation as the allegations in the book ‘50 Reasons Why Anwar Cannot be PM' were extensive, and there was the affair at the Tivoli Villa and other allegations."

The sample, Ramli maintained, was inappropriate for DNA testing, and that it was wrong of the police to force an accused person to give his or her blood sample.

"They cannot even take (a blood sample) without the suspect's consent, what more steal it. We were told that the sample was taken without Anwar's knowledge, and after the former deputy prime minister had been charged.

Ramli said he had testified against former IGP Abdul Rahim Noor (left) in the black-eye incident, and because of this Musa accused him of being sympathetic to Anwar.

"I happened to be in the lock-up when the incident happened (where Abdul Rahim assaulted Anwar resulting in the black eye). What am I supposed to do? Of course, I am expected to back my superior officer, Abdul Rahim...

"But I also have to tell the truth on what I saw. What does this have to do with siding with someone? I would do this if it was any other person." he said.

Gani abusing his powers? 

Ramli also claimed that AG Abdul Gani Patail had conspired with Musa in abusing his powers by demanding the original case files from CCID on the investigations against Musa, which are highly confidential.

"The AG has no power to call for the confidential source files. The source file (called the cicerro) is classified under the Official Secrets Act and only the handling officer has privy to it. Not even the supervising officer can have privy to the files.

"It is only the minister (of the Home Ministry) who has the power to call the file and it has to be declassified before he looks into it. The AG has no power to call for the files, only the minister. There never has been a minister calling for a source file, but Gani (right) did it," he said.

The Inspector-General's Standing Orders, Ramli added, state this clearly. All source files must be kept confidential and their particulars must not be divulged to anybody. This is to protect the sources who are providing sensitive information to the police.

The former top cop continued to maintain his earlier claim that after Abdul Gani took the files, he passed them to the ACA, which then harassed the underworld whistleblowers who had implicated Tengku Goh @ Goh Cheng Poh to retract their statements.

This resulted in Ramli's men, who took the statements, to be charged with recording false statements. However, they were all discharged and acquitted without their defence being called.

"These whistleblowers then met Johari to reiterate that what they said in their original statements about Tengku Goh was the truth." Ramli said.

Many quarters, including Ramli and Mat Zain, have repeatedly demanded for a tribunal to be set up against Gani and Musa to investigate their alleged wrongdoings.

However, despite Ramli's revelations of the Copgate affair and Mat Zain's open letters implicating Abdul Gani in the Anwar black-eye case, Prime Minister Najib Razak has shot down calls for such a tribunal.