Zahid criticised for ‘instruction’ to Azalina on Thomas inquiry

 

Umno president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said law minister Azalina Othman Said would be failing the party if she did not go all out.

PETALING JAYA: Umno president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi’s call for the law minister to “go all out” for an inquiry into former attorney-general Tommy Thomas’s memoir is unacceptable and partisan, lawyer Andrew Khoo said.

“It comes across as a very partisan call, as though it is an agenda of Umno to go after the former AG,” he said.

Khoo said the inquiry is intended to investigate claims made by Thomas in the book, not his role as former AG or any so-called “secret agenda”.

Yesterday at the Umno general assembly, Zahid, who is also deputy prime minister, said law minister Azalina Othman Said would be failing the party if she did not go “all out” in the inquiry.

Azalina had said earlier that the Cabinet had agreed to set up a royal commission of inquiry to look into the claims in the Thomas memoir.

Former Malaysian Bar president Ambiga Sreenevasan said Zahid’s remarks implied interference in the independence of the proposed inquiry and evidence that the inquiry was to Umno’s benefit, particularly those Umno leaders facing trial.

Ambiga said she supports the unity coalition working together but it cannot undermine key institutions.

Thomas’s memoir drew criticism from Attorney-General Idrus Harun, lawyers, politicians, and the general public, leading to the filing of numerous police reports.

Among the claims in the book was that he had discussions with then prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad on the appointments of the chief judge, the president of the Court of Appeal and the chief judge of Sabah and Sarawak.

Last October, police said they were completing an investigation into Thomas for alleged sedition and other suspected offences related to the allegations in his memoir. - FMT