I call on the Prime Minister Ismail Sabri to set up a Royal Commission of Inquiry into a July 2015 plot to arrest Prime Minister over the 1MDB scandal at a Cabinet meeting but was foiled a day earlier by the sacking of Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin and Attorney-General Gani Patail.
The story of this plot was told in a new book which will hit the bookshops next week – Najib’s former political communications adviser Romen Bose’s “Final Reckoning: An Insider’s View of the Fall of Malaysia’s Barisan Nasional Government”.
In what he described as a coup planned by “the Three Tan Sris”, which was to take place on July 29, 2015, Romen said the three Tan Sris were the then Bank Negara Malaysia governor Zeti Akhtar Aziz, attorney-general Abdul Gani Patail and Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission chief Abu Kassim Mohamed.
Zeti, Gani and Abu Kassim were key members of a 1MDB Task Force set up to investigate claims made by the Wall Street Journal and Sarawak Report about Najib’s involvement in looting the state fund.
Others allegedly involved in the plot included Muhyiddin Yassin, Najib’s deputy at the time, and Shafie Apdal, who was serving as rural and regional development minister.
A Free Malaysia Today report on the book said:
“Two days after the article appeared (using documents that were allegedly leaked by Bank Negara, the AG’s chambers and the MACC), a secret meeting of the task force was held to plan the removal and arrest of the prime minister.
“Abu Kassim allegedly led the call for the arrest even though the task force didn’t have solid evidence showing Najib’s guilt. All they had was speculation and gut instinct.
“A draft charge sheet was allegedly created by Abu Kassim’s officers, alleging that Najib had corruptly received RM27 million along with criminal breach of trust as an alternative charge. This was later allegedly changed to criminal misappropriation.”
Bose says senior police officers loyal to the plotters were to be stationed at the prime minister’s office in Perdana Putra prior to his arrival, with officers loyal to deputy Special Branch chief Abdul Hamid Bador accompanying Gani into the meeting room.
Once Najib had arrived, Gani was allegedly to address the Cabinet and read aloud the charges against Najib and announce his arrest. Police were then to allegedly swarm the Cabinet room and handcuff Najib, escorting him to a waiting police vehicle with a black bag over his head.
Muhyiddin would then chair the Cabinet meeting, Bose says, with all ministers expected to pledge their loyalty to him as the next prime minister.
Those responsible for the coup had allegedly also planned to get a “pliant judge” to accept the draft charges and order Najib’s immediate detention.
Bose wrote that “in a single morning, several of the alleged main plotters were neutralized without any violence or bloodshed, and the allegedly planned coup was thwarted – Malaysian style”.
I have described that particular week as the “Week of Long Knives July/August 2015”. I was told the previous weekend of Najib’s “impending” arrest.
Malaysians have a right to know what happened. Bose’s book ‘Final Reckoning: An Insider’s View of the Fall of Malaysia’s Barisan Nasional Government’ goes on sale on d that week and only a Royal Commission of Inquiry can undertake the job.
Will Ismail Sabri establish a RCI into the “Week of the Long Knives July/August 2015”?
(Statement (2) by DAP MP for Iskandar Puteri Lim Kit Siang at a media conference in Sibu on Saturday, 11th December 2021)