Yesterday, former Anti-Corruption Agency director-general, Datuk Shafee Yahya testified in open court during the Anwar Ibrahim trial that in June 1998, the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr. Mahathir Mohamad had personally ordered the Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA) to drop an inquiry into the then Economic Planning Unit director-general, Tan Sri Ali Abul Hassan Sulaiman, who was later appointed Bank Negara Governor.
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.
From Shafee’s testimony, what Mahathir had done was the same as that alleged against Anwar and for which the former Deputy Prime Minister was jailed for six years.
Mahathir’s case appears to be definitely more serious than that of Anwar and Mahathir should be arrested and prosecuted under the same charge as that levelled against Anwar, i.e. for misuse of the Prime Minister’s powers to interfere and stop ACA investigations into the EPU director-general, to demonstrate that the law is applied fairly to all, irrespective of status and office.
Is the Police going to open investigations into Mahathir based on Shafee’s testimony in court or is the Attorney-General, Tan Sir Mohtar Abdullah going to direct the Police to initiate investigations so that Mahathir could be arrested and prosected for corruption based on Shafee’s testimony?
(13/6/2000)