Parliament should hold public hearings to determine how the 13th Parliament was prevented from exposing the 1MDB financial scandal and to ensure that Parliament will never be abused again to cover up financial scandals

On Monday, I asked whether former Attorney-General Mohamed Apandi was capable of defending himself against the charge of being the worst Attorney-General in Malaysian history.

On Tuesday, I asked whether he would return the millions of ringgit he had extracted from the government in settlement of his lawsuit which he had instituted against the government for sacking him as Attorney-General, and asked him to explain the “legal, ethical and monetary basis” for acting as lawyer for Jho Loh, one of the key culprits responsible for the monstrous mega multi-billion dollar 1MDB financial scandal.

On Wednesday, I gave notice to ask the Prime Minister a Ministerial question on Thursday, asking for details of the settlement of the suit the former Attorney-General Mohamed Apandi had made against the government and Dr. Mahathir Mohamad for his dismissal as Attorney-General in May 2018, and whether it was proper for Mohamad Apandi to act as the lawyer representing Jho Low over the 1MDB scandal.

This question was not accepted for the three Ministerial questions slated for answer today as it does not appear in today’s Order Paper.

Although the question would not appear in Parliament today, Apandi has a public responsibility as the former Attorney-General to give answers.

Apandi had sued the Government for wrongful dismissal, alleging that he was entitled to special damages of over RM2.23 million including loss of remuneration totalling RM1,285,213.68 from July 27, 2018 to July 26, 2021 (or RM35,700.38 in monthly remuneration over 36 months or three years) as Attorney-General.

Were Malaysian taxpayers paying for two Attorney-Generals from July 2018 to July 2021 – one AG in office and another AG out of office?

It is a week since the 100-page judgement of Justice Azimah Omar in Apandi’s defamation suit against me was made public last Thursday, and Apandi has failed to answer the four questions highlighted by the Azimah judgment at the defamation hearing. In fact, Apandi failed to answer these questions for the last two months since the judgement was announced on 23rd May 2022.

The four questions which Apandi failed to explain, as highlighted by the Azimah judgement, were his failure to explain why;

• he (Apandi, when he was Attorney-General) absolved and exonerated Najib Razak in the 1MDB scandal;
• he accepted the “fantastical” donation narrative without evidence;
• he closed investigations on the 1MDB scandal against advice of MACC and his own internal task force;
• he refused either to accept or offer mutual legal assistance from the Swiss Attorney-General and the US Department of Justice to investigate the 1MDB scandal.

When Apandi was the Attorney-General for 33 months from the Night of Long Knives in July 2015 when Gani Patail was sacked as Attorney-General because he wanted to charge Najib Razak for the 1MDB scandal, to the political miracle of the 14th General Election on 9th May 2018, Apandi played a critical role to cover up the 1MDB scandal.

During 2016 and 2017, the United States Department of Justice (DoJ) commenced thirty related civil forfeiture cases against a wide variety of real and personal property derived from the billions of dollars of ill-gotten gains of 1MDB scandal, but Apandi did nothing.

Can Apandi explain why?

Apandi showed no interest in finding out who was “ Malaysian Official 1”, although in he was described in the DoJ litigation suits in July 2016 as “a high-ranking official in the Malaysian government who also held a position of authority with 1MDB” nor was Apandi the least interested when the then Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Abdul Rahman Dahlan admitted to the BBC on 1st September 2016 that “MO1” was Najib Razak.

Did Apandi ever ask Najib whether he was “MO1”? Or did every knowledgeable Malaysian knew that “MO1” was Najib except Apandi?

But it is not only the Attorney-General who must answer for his role in covering up the 1MDB scandal, the 13th Parliament was prevented from exposing the 1MDB scandal and became a party to the “cover-up” of the “kleptocracy at its worst” scandal because of a very biased Speaker.

Parliament should hold public hearings to determine how the 13th Parliament was prevented from exposing the 1MDB financial scandal – the “kleptocracy at its worst” scandal – and the role of the Speaker of the 13th Parliament, Pandikar Mulia Amin, and to ensure that Parliament will never be abused again to cover up financial scandals in Malaysia..