Ismail should be probed over ‘bullets’ statement

 

Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob’s constant harping on Tommy Thomas and his supposed misdeeds while he was attorney-general under the Pakatan Harapan administration from 2018 to 2020 shows the bankruptcy of real ideas to lift the country up.

In his latest salvo of loud blanks without any bullets or substance, he said that Pakatan Harapan’s muted response to the result of a probe on Thomas’ book implied that the coalition was guilty.

“I do not know why they have been keeping quiet (in Thomas’ case). Usually, if people are guilty, they would be quiet. But that would be in the usual cases, I do not know if that is the case here,” he said two days ago.

That’s an unusual comment for him to make, especially since he does not specify what Harapan was guilty of. Thomas was appointed as AG by the PM at the time Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

That appointment meant that following upon investigations the AG was free, under the Constitution, to ask for more investigations and, if there was enough evidence, to charge anyone for offences committed if he felt that they could be held up in court. And he had sole prerogative over that.

There have been successful high-profile prosecutions and one of the most prominent was for offences involving RM42 million against former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak, who now languishes in jail as a result of successful prosecution.

Najib’s conviction was upheld by the High Court judge, unanimously by the Court of Appeal hearing involving three judges and unanimously by a five-judge bench at the Federal Court level. That means nine judges in all have found him guilty, not even one dissenting judge. What are the chances that all nine of them would be wrong?

In December, Ismail Sabri, obviously falling to pressure from the court cluster within Umno Baru, set up a cabinet task force to investigate Thomas. This was after the attorney-general had already investigated charges made in police reports.

The task force report can therefore be construed as an attempt to interfere in the administration of justice in Malaysia in furtherance of claims that the Umno court cluster was wrongly prosecuted. However, none of the investigations on Thomas focuses on wrongful prosecution.

What is peculiar is that the AG who gave Najib a clean bill of legal health, Mohamed Apandi Ali, was not investigated. In 2016, Apandi cleared Najib of wrongdoing when clearly Najib was involved in many doubtful and illegal practices as exemplified by the legal cases against him now.

Umno however has tried to portray a picture that Najib was selectively and wrongly charged - nothing could be further from the truth as the nine judges have found. And Ismail Sabri became a willing accessory to protect his own position in the party.

Najib maintained his innocence against all evidence and his former DPM Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, now Umno president, echoed the same thing, saying that many Umno leaders were in a similar predicament.

‘Lots of bullets’

It became crystal clear that Thomas was being used as political fodder when Ismail Sabri admitted as much very publicly at a rally in Bagan Datuk, Zahid’s constituency when he said that he declassified the task force report on Thomas.

“I have given you bullets. In the Thomas case, we exposed (the report) by the special task force. I have given lots of bullets here. I asked the de facto law minister to publish it on their website, to detail what was done and what mistakes Thomas made.

“I told the attorney-general to take immediate action (against Thomas) under the Official Secrets Act (OSA), defamation law and so on. I told him to bring up this issue immediately,” he said.

“So, if this is already brought up, we cannot just leave it like that. We must capitalise on this issue to attack them,” he said.

What more evidence do you need to show that Ismail Sabri is trying to crucify Thomas for political gain - for his own benefit, the benefit of his party, the benefit of convicted criminal Najib and the Umno court cluster.

The following extracts from Bar Council president Karen Cheah’s statement yesterday are relevant:

“The Malaysian Bar further puts on record that it is perturbed by the untimely declassification of the special task force (STF) report which coincides with the recent dissolution of Parliament on Oct 7, 2022 and the upcoming 15th general election scheduled on Nov 19, 2022.

“It was reported that our caretaker prime minister, who is also the vice-president of Umno, has urged Barisan Nasional’s election machinery to capitalise on the declassified report, which could potentially be an abuse of power. The prime minister further openly admitted during a pre-campaign period rally that he declassified the report so that it can be used as political ‘bullets’' to attack the opposition party.

“Such blatant admission, if true, begs the question of good faith in the establishment of the STF and whether the STF report was non-partisan and reliable for justice to be properly administered, and whether justice can be achieved in the event that possible persecutions arise as a result of the STF’s report…

“At a time where political uncertainty is simmering and coming to a boil, the rakyat must have confidence and faith in the institutions that govern them. Justice is not mere lip service, but an act that has to be seen to be done by our institutions.”

There seems to be more than enough evidence to investigate if Ismail Sabri has abused his powers. Question is who will do the investigating and prosecuting in a system where there is effectively no independence of the AG and the investigating authorities such as the MACC and the police.

That adds to the lorry load of reasons not to vote back in Umno Baru and the court cluster. Just imagine what would happen if they were given unbridled power. - Mkini

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P GUNASEGARAM, a former editor at online and print news publications, and head of equity research, is an independent writer and analyst.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.