Axe AG over PKFZ foul-up, says DAP

Attorney-general Abdul Gani Patail should be sacked as he failed to secure convictions in the two Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) cases involving prominent MCA leaders, said DAP.

Commenting on the acquittal of former MCA deputy president Chan Kong Choy yesterday, DAP's Petaling Jaya Utara MP Tony Pua said Abdul Gani (right) is either incompetent or the charges were "intentionally framed to fail".

Pua, who is also a Public Accounts Committee (PAC) member, said that this is because the AG in his testimony in 2009 told the PAC that Chan could be charged with criminal breach of trust.

He said that this was based on the three letters of guarantee which Chan had signed on behalf of the government without approval from the Finance Ministry.

He said that auditors PriceWaterhouse Coopers (PwC) in their testimony also stated that these letters caused the government to pay the contractual amount to bondholders, despite services not fully rendered.

"(The) AG said that the three support letters issued by Chan were implicitly a form of guarantee from the government to ensure that there would be allocations for Port Klang Authority, to enable it to meet its obligations under the development agreement.

"As a result, Chan can be charged with criminal breach of trust under Section 409 of the Penal Code, read with Section 409B," he said.

Dr Ling’s acquittal shows Putrajaya’s graft war farcical, say critics

Putrajaya's war against crime in high places appears to be a farce, judging from the way former cabinet minister Tun Dr Ling Liong Sik (pic) was charged, and later acquitted, say a former attorney general and a veteran lawyer.

Both Tan Sri Abu Talib Othman and Karpal Singh felt that Dr Ling should not have been charged in the first place and that the four-year court battle which followed was simply a charade by Putrajaya to portray it was serious in getting a "big fish".

They questioned why ex-prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad's statement was not recorded before Dr Ling was charged with allegedly cheating the Cabinet over the Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) land project in 2010.

"If Dr Mahathir's statement was recorded earlier, then the Attorney General would have had to think twice whether to frame charges against Dr Ling," Abu Talib told The Malaysian Insider.

Police only recorded two statements from Dr Ling's former boss in 2011 and early last year as the trial was progressing.