Stop the politics of lying, Najib tells Dr M on jet ‘sabotage’

GE14 | Caretaker prime minister Najib Abdul Razak has told Pakatan Harapan chairperson Dr Mahathir Mohamad to stop making slanderous remarks and misleading the public over claims that a jet the latter was due to fly on was sabotaged.

Calling the allegation senseless, Najib pointed out that other parties have already refuted Mahathir’s account on the rented private jet experiencing technical issues.

“The Civil Aviation Authority of Malaysia said there was no sabotage. The airline company Vista said there was no sabotage, and the pilot did not even lodge a report but he was still adamant it was sabotage. 

“What is this? Politics of lying!" he exclaimed at an event in Tawau today.

Caretaker tourism and culture minister Nazri Abdul Aziz echoed the sentiment, and urged the CAAM to initiate legal action against Mahathir.

“The CAAM must use the law because Mahathir’s accusation is an irresponsible act by a former leader, made without any evidence.

“If there is an accusation that there was an act of sabotage on a plane, which was in a guarded area, it could jeopardise the world’s confidence in public transportation,” he was reported as saying by Bernama.

Transport Ministry ready to probe

Meanwhile, caretaker transport minister Liow Tiong Lai (photo) said Mahathir was free to furnish the police with additional information if he still believes that there was an element of sabotage to the jet.

According to Bernama, Liow stated that the ministry would be willing to conduct further investigations on the matter, despite CAAM’s preliminary report attributing the jet’s failure to fly to "technical issues."

“The plane had technical issues even before it took off from Singapore… because the tyre pressure was low even in Singapore, they brought the plane to Subang and tried to inflate the tyre… unfortunately, they couldn’t, and they had to change the tyre.

“But that day, they could not change the tyre on time, that was why the flight could not take off, it is just a technical issue,” he told reporters in Bentong.

Mahathir is sticking to his story, however, insisting that the plane was sabotaged with a view to prevent him from submitting his nomination papers for Langkawi, where he will contest the 14th general election.

He also found something amiss with his friends refusing to lend him their aircraft, and claimed one of them was 'under pressure' not to do so.

“Combining the two facts – that the plane is damaged and cannot fly and I cannot get my friends to lend me their plane – it is logical to believe that there is a deliberate attempt to stop me from going to Langkawi,” he said in a blog post today.

Mahathir also equated the damage to his plane to other Harapan candidates from the coalition being ruled out of GE14, such as Tian Chua in Batu and Dr S Streram in Rantau. - Mkini