The Operations Review Panel which advises the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission has denied saying it had “enough proof to charge Najib over SRC” as reported by the online news portal the Malaysian Insider today.
Its Chairman Tan Sri Hamid Bugo said the Panel expressly distanced itself from the news report which cited an anonymous panel member as the source of various statements attributed to the Panel.
“We wish to state that no anonymous source is authorised to speak for and on behalf of the Panel under any circumstances. In any event, we hereby expressly disassociate ourselves from all such statements attributed to the anonymous source,” he said in a statement here.
Hamid said the Panel did not at any time say that it had “enough proof to charge Najib over SRC” as claimed by the title of the article, or that “there is credible evidence to frame charges against Datuk Seri Najib Razak”.
The Panel also did not conclude that “the MACC investigators had collected sufficient evidence to prove a prima facie case against Najib”, he added.
However, he said, the Panel advised the MACC to complete its investigation.
Hamid also reffered to the statement issued by MACC yesterday that said “the MACC was requested by the Panel to issue a public statement on these issues”.
“We made no such request of the MACC,” he said.”It is however up to the MACC if it wishes to issue any statement.”
PRESS STATEMENT
We, the undersigned, being the Chairman and two members of the Operations Review Panel (“Panel”) which advises the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC), expressly distance ourselves from the contents of the news report entitled “Enough proof to charge Najib over SRC, says MACC oversight committee” (“the Article”) published by The Malaysian Insider earlier today.
We note that the Article cites an anonymous panel member as the source of various statements attributed to the Panel.
We wish to state that no anonymous source is authorised to speak for and on behalf of the Panel under any circumstances.
In any event, we hereby expressly disassociate ourselves from all such statements attributed to the anonymous source.
We further wish to add that Panel did not at any time say that it had “enough proof to charge Najib over SRC” as claimed by the title of the Article, or that “there is credible evidence to frame charges against Datuk Seri Najib Razak”.
The Panel also did not conclude that “The MACC investigators had collected sufficient evidence to prove a prima facie case against Najib.”
However the Panel advised the MACC to complete their investigation.
We would also like to refer to the Press Statement issued by MACC yesterday that stated that “The MACC was requested by ORP to issue public statement on these issues”. We wish to state that we made no such request of the MACC. It is however up to the MACC if it wishes to issue any statement.
Signed
Tan Sri Hamid Bugo, Chairman
Tan Sri Mohamed Jawhar Hassan, Member
