PAS to start petition calling for royal panel to probe A-G

(The Malaysian Insider) - PAS will press through a petition for a royal commission of inquiry (RCI) to investigate the Attorney-General during the current parliamentary sitting, rejecting Putrajaya’s refusal to charge Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail with corruption.

PAS vice-president Datuk Mahfuz Omar told The Malaysian Insider today the petition aims to pressure the government into action, saying it was unacceptable it has chosen repeatedly to ignore the countless allegations of misconduct against the country’s top lawyer.

He reiterated that if Abdul Gani (picture) was being absolved of blame in all the allegations, defamation charges should be slapped on all the latter’s accusers, including former senior police officer Datuk Mat Zain Ibrahim and blogger Raja Petra Kamarudin.

“To me, this shows the government has no stand in this issue. Their refusal to take action shows their unwillingness to clean up the institution.

“It is not a matter of charging the A-G personally, but the entire institution of the A-G’s Chambers itself appears to be lacking integrity and credibility,” he said when met at the Parliament lobby here this morning.

“I will start the petition soon, during this parliamentary sitting, and we will push for the RCI,” he added.

Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Mohamed Nazri Aziz told The Malaysian Insider last week that last year’s decision to close the door on the A-G’s alleged involvement in Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s 1998 “black eye” case still stands.

“Same reply, same reply. I replied to (DAP adviser Lim) Kit Siang in Parliament before. The reply is the same,” he said when asked if Putrajaya would act on the renewed allegations against Abdul Gani.

Asked to state if the government would take action against Abdul Gani’s accusers, Nazri repeated: “Same reply.”

In Parliament on December 14 last year, the government side-stepped the damning accusations made by Mat Zain that Abdul Gani had falsified documents in the “black eye” case, brushing aside several open letters and appeals issued by the former.

Instead, Nazri had told the House there was no need for Mat Zain to complain that the independent panel formed to investigate the evidence fabrication had failed to clear his name in the incident.

This, said Nazri, was because Mat Zain had never been the subject of the panel’s probe and had merely been called as a witness to testify.