The Silence of ex-AG Gani and other completely unrelated facts

I was reading Rahman Dahlan's interview in The Star today and what he said or hinted seem to reinforce what I had been suspecting all along.

1) Ex-Attorney General Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail was the the person entrusted by Tun Mahathir to be the lead prosecutor against Anwar Ibrahim in the first sodomy and corruption trials in 1998.

Anwar had personally accused Gani and then Assistant Commissioner of Police Musa Hassan of fabricating evidence against him during the trial, in particular introducing the medical report that suggested Anwar's black-eye sustained from beatings in prison were self-inflicted

2) Gani was made the Attorney-General on 1 January 2002  by Tun Mahathir - a position of immense power and you would only put someone in there that you can completely trust or have some form of control over him - something you would do if you are an experienced and cunning politician.

3) Tun M wanted PM Najib to step down and the word is that the deadline given was June. Tun M also knew the inner workings of UMNO - including how UMNO funds their party.

4) In June, the UMNO party elections were delayed until after GE14.

5) A task force was illegally set-up by AG Gani without cabinet or parliament approval in June - hence making it illegally formed.

More strangely, he AG not only formed this task-force  but he even led this task-force - although he was not supposed to even be in this task force as he is not the investigating authorities.  His role was merely to decide if and when to press any charges presented to him by the various investigating authorities.

6) Close ally of Tun M, Khairuddin Abu Hasan gloated that he met Clare Brown "by chance" while in England in June. At about the same time, a Tan Sri member of the MACC was exposed (and later confirmed by Sarawak Report) to have met Clare Brown in England too.

7) In July, a week after the UMNO party elections were delayed, only a few pages of the investigation papers of the Task Force was leaked by investigators to Wall Street Jorunal and possibly Sarawak Report which suggested that USD700m of 1MDB money was deposited into Najib's accounts - which is strange since Two out of the Big 4 auditors (over 4 years) and the Auditor General report could not find any evidence of money lost from 1MDB.

This USD700m is remarkably similar to the the supposed USD700m that was paid to Good Star even though PetroSaudi had said many times that Good Star is their 100% owned sub subsidiary.

This is made even more strange because Sarawak Report today confirmed that the amounts in Najib's accounts was more than USD1 billion which came from a few different sources and also confirmed that the money was used to pay to various UMNO leaders - during and after GE 13 and - consistent with Najib's stand that those money was not for his own personal use and was funding for UMNO during GE13 and beyond that.

Thus, why mention only USD700m (which is associated with the Good Star funds) when you could mention more than USD 1 billion which would be even more sensational?

Other details such as the money coming from donations and the account held in trust for the Party was not similarly leaked to Wall Street Journal.

8) New AG Tan Sri Apandi Ali was saying with regards to the (purported) draft charge sheet (against the PM). Apandi sent out a statement saying that the Attorney-General's chambers is very concerned that there is a deliberate attempt to criminalise the PM and force him out of the office.

The purported Charge Sheet was said to be prepared by the ex-AG personally but was not in the AG system and was not recommended by MACC since MACC said their investigations were not complete.

9) PDRM also confirmed there was such a plot and investigated certain members of the Task force.

10) AG Gani was removed on the same day as Muhyiddin together with the special branch head, which was also appointed by Tun M.

11) Three weeks after the sudden removal, AG Gani has not said a single word about his removal. If he had thought it was unfair, he would have spoke up like Muhyiddin, Shafie or the MACC officials. Total silence and this silence is very deafening.

It looks like AG Gani would be the best person to shed some light on what is actually happening and confirm whether there was such a plot to falsely criminalize Najib to remove him.

It really doesn't matter if Najib manages to prove that he is innocent later on as once Najib had been charged, he will have to step down as Prime Minister.

The Attorney-General has final authority to press any charges on any person and if the then Deputy Prime Minister had supported this, the perception is complete.

In the past, when deposing Pak Lah and Selangor MB Khalid Ibrahim, using allegations of corruptions to remove leaders was also used and widely believed by the public - only for us to find out afterwards that all such allegations was false.

In fact, Khalid Ibrahim went all the way to sue PKR for defamation over their 91 page allegations last year and two days ago, won an unconditional apology from PKR, which was read out in court.

CONCLUSION

There is no conclusion to the above FACTS as to suggest so is highly dangerous, hints at a conspiracy at the highest levels and possibly criminal.

You make your own conclusions. I have mine but will not share it publicly.


EPILOGUE:

• Veteran Supreme Council member Tan Sri Shahrir Samad confirmed that the UMNO supreme council would never question about UMNO's funding nor such matters are disclosed to them and left it to the party president, treasurer and the state UMNO leaders - a practise dating back to Tun Mahathir time. He also confirmed that it was always the practise to have trustee accounts held in the name of the president and other leaders.

• "The question related to donations were never raised or exposed to Supreme Council members or state committee as along as I've been in the council and the Johor Umno liaison committee," said the politician who has been a member of the council since the time of former party president Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad. 

• "Besides the current assets and income, the party also trusts the president, the state liaison chairman and treasurer to find other financial sources to fund its political activities and elections," he was quoted as saying..

• UMNO Secretary-General Datuk Seri Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor  and UMNO Treasurer Ahmad Husni has confirmed they are aware of the RM2.6 billion donation and also of the practise of party funds held in the name of the party president

• It is possible that PM Najib may not have trusted the Deputy President enough to reveal details of such funds to him nor deemed it necessary for Deputy President to know.

• PM Najib also said that when he was party deputy president, he had never questioned Pak Lah about party funding nor was he ever told about party funding when he was a supreme council member when Tun Mahahir was party president.

• Najib said this was a practice, even from the time of former Prime Minister, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

• Speaking at the UMNO Pasir Gudang division meeting, Najib said Dr Mahathir's deputies also never questioned him over the matter as it was the party president's who was entrusted with the funds.

• UMNO's party constitution under clause 27.2 explicitly has a clause that allows individuals to hold party funds in trust.