ARTI Warisan Sabah president Shafie Apdal insisted on a doctor because he did not want to “die in the lockup” without clearing his name, his lawyer Loretto Padua Jr said.
“He was genuinely sick and he wants the people to know what he was not faking to avoid detention and questioning by the MACC.
“He told me that he wants to go through the investigation process but he needed to get better first, so that he can better cooperate with the investigators,” Padua, who is also Parti Warisan Sabah secretary-general told a crowd of about 100 people at a candlelight vigil at the Federal Administrative Complex in Kota Kinabalu last night.
He said Shafie’s blood pressure was still unstable, but he is adamant that he wants to go through the process, adding that he was determined to assist the MACC in the investigations.
“Shafie insisted that this is a process we have to respect,” he said.
Padua said Shafie’s blood pressure was checked thrice, reading 198/120 at its highest, which was why Shafie had asked to see a doctor.
It was the doctors who insisted that the Warisan president be warded as he was in danger of suffering a heart attack or a stroke.
He said Shafie had explained to him last night that he did not want to die in the lockup before he could clear his name and that was why he insisted on seeing a doctor.
Padua is among the five lawyers representing Shafie and he was the last person to see him at the Sabah MACC headquarters lockup last night where the Warisan president is being held.
He urged those at the vigil to keep their spirits up and continue the Warisan struggle.
Shafie was arrested on Thursday night after being questioned for about three hours by the MACC. He was then warded at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital II after his blood pressure spiked.
The Semporna MP is now serving a four-day remand order which ends tomorrow.
Shafie is under investigation for alleged embezzlement of RM1.5 billion of federal funds meant for projects in rural Sabah back when he was the former rural and regional development minister.
Besides Shafie and his two brothers, Hamid and Yusof, others implicated in the case include Warisan deputy president Peter Anthony, youth chief Mohd Azis Jamman, Umno Tenom Youth chief Jamawi Jaafar, Umno Tawau Youth chief Ariffin Kassim and a 52-year-old Sabah businessman.
Penampang resident Michael Roberts, 42, who was at the vigil, said he hoped MACC officers would conduct the investigation fairly and treat Shafie with dignity as he was a senior citizen.
We are doing this (candlelight vigil) because we want Shafie to remain in high spirits,” he said.
Amid Hussein, 58, said the detention was unfair for a man who had always gone out of his way to help the people.
“I am here for Shafie. I lived in the Tanjung Aru water village before I moved to Sepanggar.
“I remember Shafie came to Tanjung Aru when I still had a home there. He came and provided funds to buy planks and other materials to repair two dilapidated bridges going into our water village,” said Amid.
He felt there was no need for the MACC to detain Shafie and treat him like criminal.
“I know the man. He has already said he won’t run away. Shafie always keeps his word.”
Also present at the vigil were Warisan vice-president Junz Wong, Warisan Wanita chief Munirah Majilis and Youth leader Azis Jamman.
Anger brews in Shafie’s Semporna
IT is like anything other weekend in Semporna, stronghold of Parti Warisan Sabah president Shafie Apdal.
People are going about their business n the small but tourist-filled east coast town that is the gateway to diving and snorkelling havens of nearby Sipadan, Mabul, Kapalai and Mataking.
There are no signs of discontent in the town of some 130,000 people even as Shafie, a man that has become a big part of their life, was arrested by graft busters from the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) in Kota Kinabalu.
MACC is investigating alleged siphoning of RM1.5 billion of public funds meant for projects in rural Sabah that allegedly occured when Shafie was rural and regional development minister.
“You won’t see open discontent anywhere,” businessman Dato Hisham Fattah said as he sipped his favourite Tenom coffee in a small coffeeshop.
“But it’s simmering. Just below the surface, you can say,” Hisham said as his MP of five terms was on Friday remanded for four days.
“The people are angry alright. Very angry even though we knew, and had been warned that such a day will come after he left Umno and formed Warisan.
“They have been told to expect Umno to pick on Shafie and try to break up the support for him.
“That day has come just as Datuk Seri (Shafie) said it would,” Hisham, who is also Warisan deputy information chief, said.
Support for Shafie is near fanatical in Semporna.
When he left Umno to form Warisan, 90% of Umno’s 485 divisions went with him.
It literally left Umno paralysed in this town where in 2013, six policemen were killed in a botched raid to arrest a wayward Suluk imam in Kpg Siminul.
“The people in Semporna are not showing it openly as they have been told to keep everything under control and in check,” Hisham said.
“There is a time for everything.
“We don’t want to provoke the authorities like holding a rally or demonstration. Probably that’s what the people in Umno had hoped but we told them (Shafie’s supporters) to show their anger and displeasure in the ballot box later,” Hisham said.
Like most Shafie supporters, Hisham echoed the widely accepted view that the investigation and arrest was “selective prosecution”.
He backed his view by asking what happened to the water department money laundering case.
“Why has no one been charged over it when we are hearing that Datuk Seri (Shafie) could be charged as early as on Monday,” Hisham said in reference to the corruption probe into the Sabah Water Department by MACC in 2015 and 2016.
Two senior officers in the department were arrested for alleged abuse of power and the anti-graft busters seized a total of RM52 million cash from various places, including from the house of one of the officers.
Gold, jewellery, luxury brand watches, branded handbags, luxury cars and hundreds of land grants were also seized.
“What happened to the two officers? Why were they not charged till today?
“What about all those cases of misappropriation of million in other ministries the MACC had investigated?
“I don’t hear of their respective ministers getting arrested and questioned,” Hisham said.
“We are angry but we’re not afraid of what they are doing,” Ghulam Miralam, a Bajau like Shafie and most of the people in the town, said.
“I’ve known Shafie for 30 years and in all those years, he had often advised us in the many meetings not to be ‘dirty’.
“That’s why I am convinced Shafie is not guilty of what he is being investigated for.
“This is plain dirty politics,” Ghulam said.
Ghulam said what Umno is really afraid of is Shafie’s ability to cut across the racial lines and get them to fight for a clean government and what is good for Sabah.
Shafie, a former Umno vice president, had a falling out with Prime Minister Najib Razak after he questioned the prime minister over the 1Malaysia Development Board (1MDB) scandal.
Najib then sacked him from the cabinet but not the party. Shafie lter left on his own accord.
“It is obvious why they are doing that to Shafie,” Mohd Jakarah Asmad of Kpg Kubang Pinang, when met at a coffeeshop, said.
“They are trying to destroy his credibility by giving the perception that he is dirty and corrupt.”
Jakarah, a former civil servant who now looks after a polling district for Warisan, said instead of tarnishing Shafie’s image, Umno had made Shafie’s supporters angrier at the party for what it was doing to Shafie.
“It makes us more determined, more determined to remove Umno.”
THE MALAYSIAN INSIGHT
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.