Nazri: Attack on MACC a known underworld ploy

By Farrah Naz Karim

PUTRAJAYA: Datuk Seri Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz, the minister overseeing the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC), sees only one glaring connection to the early morning attack on the commission office in Klang yesterday.

He said the Molotov cocktail attack was a normal cowardly act that members of the underworld tended to use to scare people.

He said considering that MACC had been probing several Selangor representatives, it gave some basis to claims Wangsa Maju member of parliament Wee Choo Keong had made recently that representatives from the state had links to the underworld.

"The MACC has been probing officials from the state. If there were no links, such an attack would not have taken place.

Police from the forensic unit carrying out investigation at the scene following the Molotov cocktail attack on the MACC office in Jalan Kota, Klang, yesterday.

"When people from Barisan Nasional for instance (Datuk) Norza (Zakaria, former Umno supreme council member) was charged for graft, we didn't see any MACC offices rained with Molotov cocktails like this morning.

"You can bet that the opposition will turn around to say that the attack was MACC's own doing," he said at the MACC Excellence Service Awards yesterday.

Also present at the event were MACC chief Datuk Seri Ahmad Said Hamdan and his deputy Datuk Seri Abu Kassim Mohammed.

In view of the hostile stance against the MACC, Nazri said that officers had been told to carry their guns at all times.

All MACC personnel are trained in handling arms to prepare themselves for any eventuality.

"And as we have seen, the time for us to be more prepared has come. All the training was rightfully done. We have never been visibly using it (firearms) but we are prepared to use it in our defence," Nazri said, adding that in the history of the graft-fighting body, its officers had several times been shot at while on duty.

On the Selangor government being adamant in enforcing its circular, which limits its officials from co-operating with the MACC in investigations, Nazri said investigating officers would take them into custody by force if they had to.

"It is simply going against the law if they do that unless the courts allow it. So if they are unhappy with that, they can sue.

"Can you imagine their brouhaha if it was the prime minister who issued the statement.

"(Selangor Menteri Besar Tan Sri) Khalid (Ibrahim) must remember they are the government. He tends to think that he is the opposition and his people are angels," Nazri said. - NST.