Kadir: Muhyiddin, Attorney -General victims of 1MDB

The impression is that Attorney- General Abdul Gani Patail was about to press charges on 1MDB on Tuesday or Wednesday

KUALA LUMPUR: A former veteran newsman remains optimistic that the truth about 1MDB and who is, or are, responsible for its unexplainable business activities and the massive flow of funds, i.e. its debts, would eventually be known.

“Is it because Attorney- General Abdul Gani Patail was about to charge the 1MDB perpetrator or perpetrators in court that his tenure was prematurely terminated?” asks former New Straits Times Group Editor in Chief Kadir Jasin in his latest blog posting.

The hasty removal of Gani as Attorney-General on Monday, according to legal experts, was tantamount to constructive dismissal, added Kadir.

In their opinion, he said, Gani was still legally the AG. “The law of natural justice was ignored. He was removed on the presumption that he was not in good health.”

“That he is not in the pink of health was an open secret. But why now and with such haste was he removed?”

The scrambling for cover was such that it creates the impression that the charging was to happen on Tuesday or Wednesday, said the former veteran newsman. “Assuming that the case was in such an advanced stage, would the ‘sacking’ of the AG and the dismissal of Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin and a couple of ministers, seal the boiling cauldron?”

“Would it not leak or, worse still, explode and spill the 1MDB muck for the whole world to see?”

The potency of the executive power may be able to stop the 1MDB muck from being exposed in the court of law, concedes Kadir, “but it has no power to stop it from being tried in the court of public opinion.”

He said it was a case of the Malay proverb “kalu tidak ada-ada masakan tempua bersarang rendah” (if there was no purpose, why did it happen?)

On his part, stressed Kadir, Muhyiddin has to act fast and furious if he does not want to disappoint the rakyat. If he buckles, he warned, the cause is lost for the majority of the people, for Umno and the Barisan Nasional (BN)

It will be a double whammy for the country if the Opposition, because of their internal squabbles, he said, was unable to take over the torch.

In times like these, he continued, it was understandable for the majority of the rakyat to feel despondent and pessimistic. “It was the heavy duty of the optimistic few to keep the spirit up and the struggle for truth alive”.