Welcoming Inspector-General of Police Abdul Hamid Bador’s confirmation that the report lodged against former attorney-general Mohamed Apandi Ali would be investigated, Lim Kit Siang said the dragnet should also extend to three others.
The trio comprised Abdul Rahman Dahlan, whom Lim described as the “communications czar” to former premier Najib Razak, former chief secretary to the government Ali Hamsa and former Public Service Department director-general Mohamad Zabidi Zainal.
“Was there an attempted coup against Najib involving charging him for corruption in the last week of July 2015 which was pre-empted by the sudden and unconstitutional sacking of the then attorney-general Abdul Gani Patail (Apandi’s predecessor)?
“It is time that all lights are focussed on this mystery which is a blot on six decades of Malaysian democracy.
“Malaysians are in a parliamentary democracy and in the information era, and they are entitled to know what actually transpired in the cloak-and-dagger operations of the ‘Week of Long Knives’ in July/August 2015 in Putrajaya,” said Lim in a media statement this afternoon.
A police investigation could shed light on the events that transpired in the ‘Week of Long Knives’ on July and August 2015, when the Najib administration acted swiftly to sack or replace key government figures, including Gani.
The crackdown reportedly took place just a few days before Gani was to press charges against Najib.
Within that same period, Najib also sacked then deputy prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin and rural and regional development minister Shafie Apdal followed by ‘Nine Days of Madness in Putrajaya’, which saw officials involved in the 1MDB probe purged.
Among them were two MACC officers, special operations division director Bahri Mohamad Zin and strategic communication director Rohaizad Yaakob who were transferred out of the anti-graft agency.
Lim noted how another former attorney-general Abu Talib Othman said in August 2015 that Hamsa and Zabidi could have flouted the law by transferring the two MACC officers out of the commission.
“Abu Talib said Ali and Zabidi could have breached Section 186 of the Penal Code for obstructing public servants from discharging their duties, and although the transfer of MACC officials was subsequently cancelled, the offence committed still stood.
“This is why police investigation into the ‘Week of Long Knives’ in July/August 2015 should include probes into the roles of Rahman Dahlan, Ali Hamsa and Zabidi as to whether they have broken the law,” Lim said.
Lim also recalled how a new website emerged on the same day Gani was removed, claiming that top government officials, especially those in the special task force investigating the 1MDB scandal and the billions in Najib’s accounts, were involved in an international conspiracy to topple the government.
“Was this episode investigated by the police and what was the outcome?
“Did the police find any criminal plot to topple the elected government by violent or unconstitutional means?” he asked.