Inspector-general of police Khalid Abu Bakar has reiterated his call to Sarawak Report editor Clare Rewcastle-Brown for her to come to Malaysia to assist the police in investigating the whistleblower site’s claim that Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak paid lawyer Muhammad Shafee Abdullah RM9.5 million.
Khalid, however, said that Rewcastle-Brown will not be guaranteed a safe passage in her arrival and return back to London, England.
“I will not guarantee her a safe passage. If she wants to come, she comes and proves whatever accusations that she made.
“If not she will keep on making all sorts of noise, allegations which are baseless,” Khalid told a press conference in Kuala Lumpur today.
The top cop was earlier asked whether Shafee had been called in by the police in relation to police reports lodged against him in the purported RM9.5 million payment.
However, Khalid said that the reports received thus far were “hearsay” based on Sarawak Report.
“I’ve already said that if you (Rewcastle-Brown) want to prove all your allegations, come forward and produce whatever documents you have to show whatever your accusations are correct.
“If not, it remains hearsay,” he added
Sarawak Report would like to thank the IGP for his generous invitation to visit him in Malaysia, in order to pass information.
However, we do note his refusal to offer ‘safe passage’, which we have to admit provides a slight deterrent.
After all, whilst he claims the information we have provided on corrupt payments to UMNO, prosecutor Shafee and others is “hearsay”, he has at the same conference admitted that our story about his family friendship with a protection racket gangster was correct.
London is by and large a safe and comfortable place, where police chiefs tend to avoid socialising with gangsters and officers refrain from beating up detainees in jail (there are rather a lot of stories about deaths in custody emanating from Malaysia).
So, since the IGP is the man who can provide safe passage and is now openly refusing to do so, we fear that we are going to have to decline his doubtless well-intentioned and gracious offer.
However, we are happy to provide this Bukit Aman sleuth with some tips regarding the matters he is interested in. To verify the information we have provided, he needs only to persuade his colleague the Attorney General to fulfil his constitutional duty and re-open the task force files on 1MDB. There before him he will see all the material that we have been quoting from, which is why anyone who knows anything about the case has been hiding under a stone ever since the material started coming out.