Former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak must get a fair trial and be allowed due process over his corruption charges but he must face the consequences if convicted, Umno deputy president Mohamad Hasan said.
Mohamad (above), who is popularly known as Tok Mat, had said in an Asia Times interview that Najib should “go inside (jail) first” while he exhausts the appeal process over his conviction on corruption charges related to SRC International Sdn Bhd.
“The court is the place where you can prove whether you’re innocent or not. He didn’t prove it. He couldn’t prove it.
“Everybody has to pay their dues. But if we want to pardon, he (Najib) has to go through the process. He’ll have to go inside first,” Mohamad was quoted as saying in the interview published earlier today.
However, he later clarified that he meant Najib must face the consequences if the Federal Court upholds his conviction in the SRC case.
“What I said was that Najib must get a fair trial. If he is found guilty, then he has to face the consequences. As we know his (SRC) case is not over yet, it is at the Federal Court, but he must get a fair trial,” he said, as reported by Free Malaysia Today.
No preemptive pardon
In the Asia Times interview, Mohamad also pointed to previous Umno leaders who were convicted in court and had to serve their sentence before getting pardoned, such as former Selangor menteri besar Harun Idris and former minister Mokhtar Hashim.
He said this is why Najib should not be given a preemptive pardon.
“You cannot pardon him before he goes through the process. That is wrong, absolutely wrong.
“A lot of prominent Umno leaders, Harun Idris, Mokhtar Hashim, had to serve. Everybody has to serve before you get a pardon. Simple as that. No two ways about it,” Mohamad said.
On July 28, 2020, Najib was found guilty on one charge of abuse of power, three counts of criminal breach of trust and three counts of money laundering involving RM42 million in SRC funds.
Najib is currently awaiting his final appeal, set for August at the Federal Court. He also has another 1MDB-related case ongoing at the High Court in Kuala Lumpur.
‘Umno lost because of 1MDB’
Mohamad placed the blame on 1MDB for Umno’s first-ever defeat at the general election back in 2018, saying they did not manage to address the issue properly at the time.
“Umno was defeated in 2018 not because it didn’t take care of the people. There was only one issue: 1MDB. The party and the government were too tolerant. We didn’t manage to explain (and) tell the truth,” he said.
The Rantau assemblyperson said the party thought it was a “very simple issue” but did not realise it would turn into a bushfire that spread far.
“People are well-informed so you cannot hide and sweep everything under the carpet anymore, so we have to address the issues.
“The country has gone down the drain because of this one bloody 1MDB case,” he said.
The problem started when Najib, who was both prime minister and finance minister at the time, took charge of 1MDB, said Mohamad.
“It was done in the off-balance sheet, done by one person: the prime minister who was also the finance minister.
“If that person had been magnanimous to step aside for a while, Umno would not have been toppled and would have been the government of today,” he said.
‘Anybody can help us’
Despite blaming Najib and 1MDB for Umno’s 2018 electoral defeat, Mohamad pointed to Najib’s resurgent popularity as the reason why the former prime minister had been asked to actively campaign for the party in the recent state elections.
The Umno second-in-command also said he was the one who planned for Najib to become their star campaigner in the recent state polls.
“Anybody can help us. Anybody is welcome to help during a campaign.
“He’s gaining momentum, a mass movement. Not only from strong supporters within Umno but from people on the street.
“Everywhere he goes, thousands of people come and see him. But it has nothing to do with the party,” he said.
Mohamad attributed Najib’s current popularity to the public’s perception of “selective prosecution”, referring to claims from Najib’s legal defence team that the then-High Court judge who convicted the former prime minister in the SRC case had a conflict of interest and should have recused himself from the case.
“The onus is on the judge, he should declare he is involved in SRC or 1MDB and he should recuse himself.
“I’m not saying whether he (Najib) is innocent or not, but he should have a fair trial.
“Whether Najib is wrong or right, people are very clear about what he’s done. People know. I know. We know what’s happened from what we read,” said Mohamad. - Mkini
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