Ex-PM Najib Razak fixed a member of his cabinet who quit on the 1MDB scandal with a sexual harassment charge in local papers, while the latter’s son got fired from a government-linked company.
There were not only arm-twisting tactics against the ex-minister.
The key witness alleged that Najib used a local paper and a blogger in England to tarnish his image and get his son sacked.
The ex-minister also confessed to cover-up his 2016 media statements over his resignation as second finance minister.
He says he did so to avoid “spoiling” the name of the ex-PM.
His testimony shows the extent of the 1MDB scandal.
The witness in Najib’s SRC International trial, former Finance Minister II Ahmad Husni Hanadzlah told the court all this happened to his family after his quit as a minister in June 2016.
Husni, 67, says his speech in Parliament on October 2015 in which he spoke on the problems faced by the 1MDB, led to the harassment against his family and himself.
He said one of Najib’s aides visited him in his house on one night telling him the then prime minister wanted to see him straight-away.
Husni then told the Court he did not go, saying he was tired, but the aide said the PM wanted to see him otherwise on the next day, ‘they attack you.”
He says he stayed home, telling the Court true enough the attacks against him started the very next day.
A local Malay language newspaper ran a story about an alleged scandal involving a former minister. The report, Husni says, appeared in the Umno-owned Utusan Malaysia.
NST, a local daily also linked to Umno, today says the testimony from Husni could have come straight out of a blockbuster courtroom thriller, ironically indeed.
Husni says his son sacked from a company which was bidding for a multi-billion ringgit road contract at the New Pantai Expressway after he quit as a minister.
His son attended an Economic Action Council meeting, and the minutes found its way on blogger Raja Petra Kamarudin’s website almost immediately.
Husni told the court the blogger had written he was angry NPE did not get an RM2.7 billion project the company was bidding for.