Attorney General Abdul Gani Patail has ordered the Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA) to close 3 high-profile cases (former ACA chief Zulkifli Mat Noor, Inspector-General of Police Musa Hassan and Deputy Internal Security Minister Johari Baharum).
I have no clue if these people are corrupted or not, but I just felt that ACA could do better with their investigation methods.
According to reports ACA has done some investigations in those 3 cases by questioning the alleged parties and checking their bank statements and assets etc… nothing wrong with that; but do you think people will ever admitted to give or accept bribe? Do you think people will use direct banking to transfer money in bribery? Do you think people who accept bribe will put the assets they bought (with those money) under their own name?
Any person who watches enough Hong Kong series can tell that people are smarter than that… not just in TV, but in real life as well.
I can’t really suggest how ACA can improve their investigation, because I don’t have the expertise and resources to do so. However ACA should be filled with people and network that are capable to trace oversea accounts and accounts of people that are related to the alleged parties… not just investigations that can be done by amateurs like you and me.
I guess the biggest question though… is how independent ACA was acting when conducting investigations against those VIPs. ACA could be capable of conducting better investigations, but do they want to do so against the big guns? I don’t know.
Update July 31 - Former Sabah ACA director Mohamad Ramli Abdul Manan, who lodged the report against former ACA chief Zulkifli Mat Noor, claims that Zulkifli was cleared of corruption allegations only because the attorney-general failed to investigate the claims thoroughly. [Malaysiakini]
Mohamad lodged a report early this year alleging misconduct by Zulkifli by way of corrupt practices and sexual misconduct as well as irregularities and abuse of power.
Update August 2 - An anti-corruption watchdog (Transparency International Malaysia) has demanded full public disclosure of the basis for the government’s dismissal of corruption allegations against former Anti-Corruption Agency director-general Zulkipli Mat Noor and police chief Musa Hassan. [Malaysiakini]
Articles worth reading regarding this issue…
Wanted - White Paper on “All-Clean Verdict” for Musa, Zulkipli and Johari
Malaysia’s Attorney General Hears No Evil, Sees No Evil
[...] previously wrote about how ACA was doing amateur investigation and letting people off the hook rather easily… but doing amateur investigation and charging [...]
[...] current AG Abdul Gani Patail has done it before, and who are going to stop AG from doing it again? And what freedom is ACA actually having if this [...]