Former Attorney-General Apandi and former Inspector-General of Police Khalid should be investigated for their role in the “Week of Long Knives July/August 2015” to establish the important principle of the supremacy of Rukunegara which must be respected by all key top officials

The former Attorney-General Tan Sri Mohamad Apandi Ali and the former Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar should be investigated for the role in the infamous “Week of Long Knives July/August 2015” to establish the important principle of the supremacy of Rukunegara which must be respected by all key top officials.

Three key principles of Rukunegara, namely loyalty to King and Country, the supremacy of the Constitution and the Rule of Law, were undermined and assaulted in the “Week of Long Knives July/August 2015”, causing a great damage to the system of parliamentary democracy in the country.

This was the only occasion when the 2012 amendment to the Penal Code to create a new section 124B to a create a new offence that anyone carrying out , by any means, directly or indirectly, “any activity detrimental to parliamentary democracy” could be jailed to 20 years would have applied on all fours, but instead of invocation of Section 124B of the Penal Code against the principals undermining parliamentary democracy, these principals were allowed to “run riot’ in their conspiracy to undermine the supremacy of Rukunegara.

It is the undermining of these key Rukunegara principles during the “Week of Long Knives July/August 2015” which led to Malaysia suffering the infamy, ignominy and iniquity of being condemned by the world as a global kleptocracy.

Malaysia must be respected by the world for our integrity but in those infamous years, we were condemned by the world for our kleptocracy.

Malaysians have proved that they are a great people for against all expectations, they had peacefully and democratically saved Malaysia in the 14th General Election from being locked into the trajectory of a failed, undemocratic, rogue and kleptocratic state, which would be a national catastrophe for future generations of Malaysians.

In the second year of Pakatan Harapan government, we must see more progress to establish the fundamental principles of a New Malaysia and reset nation-building policies to achieve the five pillar promises of the Pakatan Harapan General Election Manifesto, viz:

• Reduce the people’s burden;
• Institutional and political reforms;
• Spur sustainable and equitable economic growth;
• Return Sabah and Sarawak to the status accorded in Malaysia Agreement 1963; and
• Create a Malaysia that is inclusive, moderate and respected globally.

We must establish, clearly and unequivocally, the supremacy of the rule of law and that all concerned, whether Prime Minister, Cabinet Minister, Attorney-General or high officers of the state such as the Attorney-General, Inspector-General of Police or the MACC Chief Commissioner, must abide by the rule of law and must expect to be investigated subsequently if they had violated the fundamental principles of the Constitution and the supremacy of the rule of law while in office.

It is for this reason that one of the questions I had submitted to the July meeting of Parliament reads:

“ To ask the Prime Minister whether there would be investigations into the series of events in July/August 2015 which had been referred to as ‘Week of Long Knives’ where the Attorney-General was unconstitutionally dismissed, leading government officials victimised and laws abused for refusing to comply with a master plan to ‘cover-up’ the 1MDB scandal, and the remedial actions that have been taken.”

As I mentioned yesterday, a former anti-corruption agency officer had lodged a report with the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) in January 2016 against the then Attorney-General Tan Sri Mohamad Apandi Ali for clearing the then Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak of corruption charges which had been recommended by the MACC and agreed upon by the former Attorney-General Tan Sri Gani Patail for the Penal Code offence of criminal misappropriation of public funds.

Investigations should be initiated to establish whether Khalid, as the then Inspector-General of Police and a member of the Special Task Force of Four Tan Sris (Attorney-General, Police, MACC and Bank Negara) on the 1MDB scandal, was responsible for the series events known as the “Week of Long Knives July/August 2015” beginning with the unconstitutional sacking of Gani Patail as Attorney-General, sacking of Tan Sri Muhyddin Yassin as Deputy Prime Minister-cum-Education Minister and Datuk Seri Shafie Apdal as Minister for Regional and Rural Development, and the “reign of terror” against independent-minded officers of the Attorney-General’s Office, the Police, the MACC and Bank Negara.

In the New Malaysia which Pakatan Harapan wants to build after the 14th General Election, no person is above the law however high his office or status, whether as Prime Minister, Cabinet Minister, Attorney-General and high officers of state.