Anwar confirms Hadi is innocent and a victim of slander

“Anwar liberated Hadi by revealing that “the RM90 million PAS (was alleged to have) received was from UMNO, not 1MDB.” This proves that Dato’ Ambiga Sreenevasan lied to Clare about “Najib paying PAS’ “top echelons” RM90 million using money stolen from 1MDB.” The fact that Anwar claims to possess ‘evidence’ that the money “was not from 1MDB” but has yet to hand over the ‘evidence’ to the police constitutes a crime punishable by terms of imprisonment”

Raggie Jessy Rithaudeen

Earlier today, PAS president Dato’ Seri Abdul Hadi Awang asked Dato’ Seri Anwar Ibrahim to reveal the names of persons who received cuts from an alleged RM90 million bribe. Stories of the bribe first surfaced in a 6th of August 2016 publication by Sarawak Report, in which the portal owner, Clare Rewcastle Brown, accused Dato’ Seri Najib Tun Razak of paying PAS’ “top echelons” RM90 million using money stolen from 1MDB. Anwar shifted the goalpost yesterday by insisting that the MACC could not trace the money to 1MDB because the money had originated from UMNO. The PKR president says he has proof of this and the names of PAS leaders who took ‘cuts’ from the said bribe. Now, this is the same fellow who previously told us that Hadi ‘paid’ Clare RM1.4 million.

And we all know where that went.

To recap, on the 27^thof February 2019, just three days ahead of the Semenyih by-election, Anwar declared that Hadi paid Clare RM1.4 million to end the PAS president’s defamation suit against her. Speaking before a ceramah, the PKR president gallantly declared that he had a bank statement ‘proving’ that Hadi was responsible for the payment. Two days later, Clare published a cheque (hereinafter referred to as “the cheque”) worth that amount and a letter (hereinafter referred to as “the letter”) she addressed to the Manager of Maybank Jalan Tun Razak. In the letter, the Sarawak Report Chief Editor stated in no uncertain terms that Hadi paid her RM1.4 million as part of a settlement agreement to withdraw the PAS president’s defamation suit against her.

When Clare repeated the claim in Sarawak Report, I made no bones about it. However, the minute her lawyer, Americk Singh Sidhu, validated her claim and confirmed receiving a RM1.4 million cheque from a ‘third party’, I lodged a police report stating that the trio – Americk, Clare and the so-called ‘third party’ – was complicit with the manager of Maybank Jalan Tun Razak and Bank Negara to launder RM1.4 million into the United Kingdom (UK). When questioned by an Investigating Officer, I stressed that the man who issued the cheque, Rameli Musa, did so on Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s behest and that everyone concerned with the transaction knew that the money was not from Hadi.

As a matter of fact, not only was the money not from Hadi, neither Americk, Bank Negara nor the Manager of Maybank Jalan Tun Razak found any need to get in touch with the PAS president, which is highly irregular, given that RM1.4 million is a very large sum to be channeled across borders without anyone from Bank Negara or Maybank getting in touch with him. The flow of such a sum would surely have triggered a red flag somewhere and prompted some form of communication between Bank Negara and the central bank of the UK. How and why Bank Negara and Maybank chose to skip all money laundering regulations by ignoring Hadi is as good your guess as it is mine.

And it is one thing that the banks gave Hadi a miss. It is another that the RM1.4 million actually made it into Clare’s UK account without Hadi or his lawyers ever getting involved. Everything points to a collusion between Americk, Maybank and Bank Negara to mislead the central bank of the UK. Given that the RM1.4 million cheque was issued by Rameli, there is no question that Keretapi Tanah Melayu Berhad Chairman conspired with Americk and Clare to implicate Hadi and blacken his face. How else would one explain Rameli’s silence when Anwar accused Hadi of paying Clare RM1.4 million? Would the KTMB chair not be the best candidate to reveal the name of the person who got him to issue the cheque?

There is nothing contained in the bundle of documents Clare and Hadi filed with the High Court of Justice in London that indicates costs. The bundle was pursuant to an out of court settlement that came without monetary conditions attached. The letter Clare wrote to the Manager of Maybank Jalan Tun Razak was written by her in her personal capacity and was never contained in the bundle. If anything, it serves only to prove that the bank manager colluded with her to launder money into the UK. And we have Anwar to thank for all this, as it was his ‘genius’ that led to the publication of cheques and letters that hammered nails into everyone’s credibility.

Yes, on the 27^thof February 2019, it was Anwar who helped liberate Hadi by announcing that he had “proof” Hadi paid Clare RM1.4 million.” Today, it is he who liberated Hadi once more by declaring, this time, that “the RM90 million PAS (allegedly) received was from UMNO, not 1MDB.” This goes a long way to prove that Dato’ Ambiga Sreenevasan lied to Clare about “Najib paying PAS’ “top echelons” RM90 million using money stolen from 1MDB.” The fact that Anwar claims to possess ‘evidence’ that the money “was not from 1MDB” but has yet to hand over the ‘evidence’ to the police constitutes a crime punishable by terms of imprisonment.

That, in essence, is the basis to the report I’ll be lodging against the PKR president tomorrow at the Ibu Pejabat Polis Daerah in Subang Jaya, Selangor. In the report, I will give details as to why the police should investigate Anwar for withholding evidence that could otherwise help clear Hadi’s name. The report is a follow up of the one I lodged against Ambiga on the 9^thof February 2019 at the same police station and the one I lodged with the MACC two days earlier. In both reports, I pointed to an allegation contained in the Defence and Counterclaim (D&C) statement Clare’s lawyers filed with the High Court of Justice in London on the 11^thof October 2017.

According to the allegation – which, for all intents and purposes, formed the basis to all of Clare’s claims – Ambiga was the person who told her of the RM90 million Najib was accused of paying PAS “top echelons.” I asked both the MACC and the police to use every avenue of law there was to force a confession out of Ambiga. I urged them to discover if indeed the former Bersih co-chairperson told Clare such a thing and if she was bribed by someone to do so. I made it clear that the Special Branch unit in Bukit Aman had audio evidence proving that Ambiga made the whole story up.

And yes, I have the locus standi to involve myself with the case and have Clare’s D&C to thank for it…