DAP disciplinary chief Tony Pua has questioned who had lapsed in the 1MDB case, following former attorney-general Apandi Ali’s cryptic one-liner after the High Court found Najib Abdul Razak guilty of all 25 abuse of power and money laundering charges.
Pua asked if Apandi could experience a lapse in intelligence if the latter had any to begin with.
“ROTFLOL (rolling on the floor laughing out loud)!!!!! Who paid? Who lapsed?
“Are you insulting us that we paid for our stupidity (in) electing Najib, who appointed you as the AG? Or are you talking about (your) convicted former boss?
“Or are you saying that we Malaysians paid for your stupidity? In which case, IMHO (in my honest opinion), I beg to differ (that) there was any intelligence to begin with,” the former Damansara MP said in a Facebook post.
Yesterday, Apandi said, “Sometimes one has to pay for a lapse of intelligence”, when contacted for comment following Najib’s conviction, given that the former AG had once cleared the former prime minister of any wrongdoing.
However, he declined to elaborate when asked what he meant.
The day before, presiding judge Collin Lawrence Sequerah found Najib guilty on all four counts of abuse of power and all 21 money laundering charges linked to the 1MDB scandal.
The former Umno president was handed 15 years’ imprisonment and ordered to pay a total fine of RM11.38 billion for the four abuse of power offences.
‘Don’t expect public forgiveness without remorse’
Commenting on the matter, former Bangi MP Ong Kian Ming told Malaysiakini that he hopes Najib will decide against appealing the decision.
“It would be much better for him and his family if he could start the process of public and private repentance over his own role and responsibility in the 1MDB case, which has cost and is still costing the country billions of ringgit in debt and perhaps more in reputational damage.
“As long as he doesn’t admit that he played an active role in this scandal, he would find it almost impossible to find some semblance of forgiveness in the court of public opinion,” the DAP politician said.
He previously mulled the possibility of granting Najib a full pardon as part of a broader political “reset” aimed at discouraging court charges by the government of the day against its rivals.
Such a proposal, Ong said, would include not just a full pardon for Najib, “perhaps after the conclusion of the ongoing 1MDB case”, but also the discontinuation of cases involving DAP national adviser Lim Guan Eng and Bersatu president Muhyiddin Yassin.
Hoping for accelerated reforms
Meanwhile, Ong floated hopes that the verdict would drive the Madani government to strengthen the independence of the Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC), so that the corrupt will not believe they are safe as long as they stay in power.
He also called for the empowerment of an independent judiciary through reforms to the Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC).
The JAC comprises nine members, four of whom are automatically appointed based on their judicial positions. The rest are appointed by the prime minister.
In July, nine PKR MPs raised a laundry list of outstanding issues for the consideration of Chief Justice Wan Ahmad Farid Wan Salleh, who also serves as the JAC chairperson.
Among the matters highlighted by the lawmakers are ensuring judicial appointments follow the proper processes under the Federal Constitution and the JAC Act 2009, so that appointments are made based on merit and seniority.
They also argued that the prime minister should be required to provide official reasons, either to the JAC or Parliament, for rejecting candidates vetted by the commission. - Mkini
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