Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim once lamented corruption charges against former Sabah chief minister Musa Aman being dropped…..
In November 2018, Musa was slapped with 30 corruption charges involving US$50.1 million and 16 money laundering charges involving more than US$37.8 million and S$2.5 million.
Then in June 2020, the charges were dropped.
In a video on June 10, 2020 – one day after Musa was freed – Anwar lamented that this was a case of double standards in the justice system.
“The charges against Musa were dropped just like that, while I saw that a poor person is still in prison over a matter of hundreds of ringgit.
“If you are a teacher, or regular worker, factory worker or lowly government servant, if you commit an offence you will be convicted and fined or jailed.
“But if you are a big political figure (implicated over) hundreds of millions or billions of ringgit, you are let go. This is proven in the 100 ‘years’ of Perikatan Nasional,” he said.
Vested interest?
PN had marked 100 days in power on June 8, the day before Musa was freed.
Prosecutors in freeing Musa had cited the testimony of former attorney-general Abdul Gani Patail, who defended not charging the former Sabah chief minister with corruption as the monies involved were deemed as political funding.
Commenting on this, Anwar had questioned whether Gani had any vested interest in Sabah.
“Can’t it be questioned what is Gani’s interests in Sabah, be it land, personal, family or shares, that made it so easy to let go (of Musa),” the PKR president had said in the June 10 video.
Separately, Anwar also quoted a tweet poking fun at Musa for being acquitted while a labourer who stole petai was sentenced to 15 months in jail.
Anwar observed with great perception the reasons why former AG Abdul Gani Partial may have let off his relative Musa Aman when evidence of the then Sabah chief minister’s involvement in smuggling RM40 million through customs in a suitcase was revealed by the anti-corruption authorities in Hong Kong in 2008.
Not only was there a family tie, but Musa was entrenched in the national UMNO hierarchy that had worked hard to seize power in Sabah by buying over state assemblymen elected to represent another party. His brother was appointed foreign minister under Najib and Musa had for years exploited his control of Sabah Forestry (Yayasan Sabah) which had been granted him the moment UMNO bought its way into office, to extract vast kickbacks.
Doubtless, many of those criminal kickbacks went towards UMNO election purposes and keeping henchmen well fed. That did not make it legal, as apparently argued by the third rated lawyer Gani Patail. Political parties do not have carte blanche permission to loot the state, quite the opposite as they are supposed to protect the national wealth and distribute it fairly and according to the law.
Instead, the people of Sabah, who live in this highly resourced region, have been left disgustingly poor by these power-grabbers who eyed only their own profit.
All this, Anwar Ibrahim, whilst in opposition observed most accurately in this quoted statement.
Musa, of course, did not only steal for UMNO and the protection that gave. The real looting was channelled through a network of off-shore companies into his own private accounts. It has been estimated that up to $100 million was taken from the people of Sabah.
So what possible motive could there be for promoting this man to a position of immunity and leaving all that loot untouched by the forces of law and order, instead of pursuing this money stolen from the public purse?
The people of Sabah are free to come to their own conclusions about what deal was done with Musa. However, the prime minister who sanctioned this move gave his own damning opinion four years ago.