The Attorney-General Tan Sri Mohamad Apandi Ali has rejected the investigations and recommendations of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) and exonerated Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak of any wrongdoing or crime in the RM2.6 billion donation and RM42 million SRC International scandals, deciding that no charges would be brought against Najib and even instructing MACC to close all investigations on the matters with regard to Najib.

The immediate reaction of shock and outrage by the MACC special operations director Bahri Mohd Zin to the Attorney-General’s decisions and his comment that the MACC would “most likely” to appeal against the AG decision as the cases were so “straightforward” was a mere understatement considering the firestorm the AG’s decision sparked both inside the country and world-wide.

For the past six days, Malaysia was the “bad boy” of the international media, flayed as a country where the Rule of Law is treated as a joke because of the AG’s decision – a sober reminder to the Najib government that Malaysia operates in an open international society and borderless world where everyone of its decisions and actions must be able to stand up to international scrutiny.

Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Zahid Hamid did his image as the No. 2 in the country no favours when he tried to stop the conflagration of the the firestorm over the Attorney-General’s decision when he said a few hours after the AG’s announcement that “no one should question the competence or independence of Malaysia’s institutions or our legal process” – for Zahid was acting like Canute trying to stop the tide.

What would have happened to me if I had RM2.6 billion in my bank account deposited from foreign sources?

Would the Attorney-General exonerate me and declare that I am not guilty of any wrongdoing and that no charges would be preferred against me if I had said that I did not know who had deposited that gargantuan sum of money into my account, that two months later I had returned 78% if the deposits, i.e. RM2.03 billion out of the RM2.6 billion, to the donor without saying what I have done to the balance of the RM570 million – or would I be pilloried in the UMNO/BN-owned or controlled media, print, electronic and social, as a traitor and faced a battery of charges in court as a corrupt person who received funds from foreign sources to interfere in domestic affairs of the country?

(Speech at the DAP Malacca “Solidarity with Lim Kit Siang & Mana RM2.6 billion?” dinner at Machap Umboo in the last of his one-day six-stop visit to Malacca on Sunday, 31st January 2016 at 8 pm)