MACC ADVISER WANTS ACTION ON WEBSITE REPORT

By: JOE FERNANDEZ

Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) adviser Robert Phang wants a report on a Sabah website probed “for passing off rumours of a court case in Hong Kong as the Gospel truth”.

The subject of the said probe should be made public, he added. “The people have a right to know, since the case still under MACC investigation is now generating heat anew because of muck-raking”.

He described as “inaccurate” a news report last Wednesday on the “errant” website that three Malaysians - a senior lawyer and two timbermen, including a Chinese Muslim - would be in a Hong Kong court on Oct 27 for the mention of a case involving money-laundering and financing of terrorism. All three are from Sabah, one of them reportedly a transmigrant from Negeri Sembilan.

“If the news is true, then it's news to me,” said Phang (right), who spent over 30 years in Sabah, which included the Berjaya administration period (1976-1985) . “But I can tell you that such a case could not be brought to a court in Hong Kong without the MACC being informed first.”

Phang said this to Malaysiakini last night, in reference to an Oct 13 report on the Sabahkini website.

The reason the MACC would have been informed first, he said, was because the commission itself was conducting investigations into the same matter. “The probe has yet to reach a conclusion either way”.

The Sabahkini report says S$16 million was confiscated from one of the three Malaysians at Hong Kong airport and subsequently, US$430 million in assets at a Hong Kong bank was frozen.

The thrust of the purported court case in Hong Kong, as reported by Sabahkini, was whether these sums of money belonged to Umno and or the federal government of Malaysia.

Citing sources, Sabahkini said Hong Kong's Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) received a fax from the office of the Malaysian Prime Minister, during the administration of Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, “explaining” the two sums. The ICAC apparently has not bought the contents of the letter and further believes that it (the letter) may have been falsified, according to Sabahkini.

'Baffled by report and its timing'

The MACC adviser confessed that he was baffled by not only the report on the Hong Kong case but its “timing”. He reckons that the surfacing of the report in the Sabahkini site may have something to do with the coming parliamentary by-election in Batu Sapi. Alternatively, he sees it as a deliberate attempt to either influence or jeopardise the on-going MACC investigations on the same case.

On what the Hong Kong case had to do with the Batu Sapi by-election, Phang said he “did not want to go there”.

“If you ask me, this (the website report) is nothing more than deliberate rumour-mongering,” said Phang.

“Something should be done about it. It must be put to a stop. We can't have such reports circulating now and then and raising questions in public on the competency of the authorities (MACC).”

Asked whether the ICAC of Hong Kong may have decided to go ahead in court without informing the MACC, he replied that this could be probable on paper, but not in reality, “considering the need for agency-to-agency and government-to-government cooperation in investigations of this kind”.

He hastened to add that it was not within MACC's purview or jurisdiction to influence ICAC either way on the case or whether to take it to court.

S$16 million allegedly confiscated at HK airport

The website report, citing insiders, goes on to raise several queries, including why an individual, in his private capacity, was carrying S$16 million in a briefcase at Hong Kong airport, purportedly for a parliamentary by-election in Permatang Pauh.

The website also claims to have received banking documents from Singapore, connected to one of the three, by mail but does not indicate when these were received.

Questions were also raised in the Sabahkini report on the failure of the MACC and the Inland Revenue Department (IRD) to detect RM150 million kept at a house, several million in Singapore under the name of the wife of one of the three, US$38 million at a bank in Hong Kong, the acquisition and possession of a luxury house and car, presumably in Sandakan, by the husband and his deliberate “taunting" of the MACC at one time by assembling all his luxury cars at the car park of the Shangri-La in in Kuala Lumpur.

Sabahkini could not be immediately contacted for a response. Text messages sent to it failed and calls went to voice mail.

An email query drew this response this morning: “I (the editor) am outside the country. Just email. That's why I update my web at 3 to 4am in Malaysia. When did MACC deny Sabahkini report? What did he say? Just publish.”

In another email, the website editor (Mutalib MD) said: “He (Robert Phang) above the law? It has nothing to do with MACC. It is ICAC case. Almost 20 people booked their flight to Hong Kong (for the case). Witnesses subpoenaed. Robert Phang still dreaming. MACC cannot be trusted.”