Shafee said the incident happened in June 1998 - three months before Mahathir sacked Anwar – after the agency raided the office of the director general of the Economic Planning Unit (EPU) and found a large sum of money.
Shafee said Mahathir called him up after the raid and he was "told off". The Prime Minister’s words were: "How dare you raid my senior officer's office?", accused him of "trying to fix" the official and wanted to know whether he had acted under the instruction of Anwar.
Shafee said that Mahathir ordered him to close the case against the head of the Economic Planning Unit. He was "highly disillusioned" and told his wife that he wanted to resign but she advised him to finish his contract which had three months left.
Mahathir should respond to Shafee’s shocking testimony that he had interfered and stopped the ACA’s investigations into the then EPU director-general, as this goes against all assurances and statements which had been made by the Prime Minister inside and outside Parliament for the past 19 years that the ACA was completely independent and not subject to any high-level government interference or influence.
Shafee’s testimony has strengthened the credibility of the four police reports lodged by Anwar last year naming names in high government places about corruption, gross abuses of power, selective prosecution and obstruction with the course of justice - but on which the authorities had sat on without taking any action whatsoever.
(13/6/2000)