Malaysia's former premier Mahathir Mohamad told an inquiry into allegations of corruption in judicial appointments Thursday that he alone selected judges when he was in power.Mahathir's one-time protege, former deputy premier Anwar Ibrahim, unleashed a furore last year by releasing a video clip which apparently shows a lawyer telling a judge over the phone that he would put him forward for a top job.
A royal commission into the tape has heard that the conversation took place in 2001, when Mahathir -- who stood down four years ago in favour of Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi -- was still in power.
Mahathir said he discussed prospective judicial appointments with various people including business leaders, public servants and friends, but dismissed suggestion that they dictated the outcome.
"I do hear from individuals unofficially during my conversations with them at social gatherings and I take into account what they say, but the final answer is mine," he said.
"I normally don't explain to anybody. The only thing is, I listen to many people, but I make the decision on my own," he added.
The tape was recorded on December 20, 2001 and purportedly shows the lawyer discussing brokering judicial appointments and saying a memo is being sent to Mahathir recommending a judge for a top position. The lawyer has been named as V.K. Lingam.
"I do not remember receiving any memo from Lingam, but as the prime minister I may have received it from Eusoff Chin," Mahathir said, referring to a former chief justice who was also mentioned in the clip.
He also said he did not know the lawyer personally until after he stepped down, and later hired him to act in a legal case involving Anwar.
Later, Tourism Minister Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor, who in 2001 was deputy minister in charge of legal affairs, denied suggestions in the clip that he acted as a broker among the various figures manipulating judicial promotions.
"It is not true. I think the person who is talking in the video clip must be drunk," he said.
Anwar, who is also due to appear before the two-week inquiry next week, was heir apparent to Mahathir until his sacking in 1998, when sodomy and corruption charges landed him in jail for six years.
The sodomy charge was later overturned and Anwar was released from jail, but the corruption conviction still stands and he has been barred from public office until April this year.
Agence France-Presse - 1/17/2008
No comments:
Post a Comment