Zaid reveals MORE about Tommy Thomas, Mahathir & Gopal Sri Ram

Further to my post
Zaid: Tommy Thomas bought me thosai for breakfast at Dave’s Corner, Bangsar; wanted me to slow talk to Mahathir to appoint him as AG yesterday which was taken from FMT, I am now adding extracts only from a similar post by Zaid Ibrahim in Malaysiakini, the extracts being mainly to avoid repetition in the content, as below:

The real reason I am writing this blog is to ask Thomas to give clarity about the things that happened during his tenure. In his book, he said Mahathir asked him to resign as soon as he was appointed.

To lend credence to that, there was a report from Free Malaysia Today that he had resigned two months after he was appointed, which Thomas then denied. None of us has forgotten the statement by Dr M that he regretted appointing Thomas as AG.

Dr M wanted Sri Ram as AG

On Astro Awani last week, Thomas said he was ever so grateful to Mahathir, whom he claimed, had stood by him for 20 months. Now, which is which Thomas? Your listeners and readers surely need the truth to be spoken and clarity to be given as the saying goes: “No legacy is so rich as honesty.”

Allow me the liberty to express this opinion. Under pressure from DAP, Mahathir relented and appointed Thomas as AG. Thomas was not his preferred choice. Soon after, he then called Thomas to resign telling him that the Malays were up in arms against his appointment.

The real reason was not the pressure of the Malays, as Mahathir could take any pressure put on him. Tun wanted Gopal Sri Ram as attorney-general. Sri Ram was the lawyer Mahathir trusted to bury Umno in 1987, as he was able to convince the late judge Harun Hashim that since a few (out of thousands) Umno branches were not registered, then the whole party became illegal.

The demise of Umno enabled Mahathir to form Umno Baru, and in the process excluded all his opponents from the party. You could say that Sri Ram had rendered invaluable service to Dr M. Naturally when the second big assignment came along, ie to finish Najib and his wife Rosmah Mansor off, who else is better than Sri Ram to do the job effectively?

Naturally, Thomas refused to resign. It would be cumbersome for Mahathir to remove him as attorney-general, as the process and the ensuing publicity would put him in a bad light. So the next best thing was to ask Thomas as AG to give a fiat to Sri Ram to be the chief prosecutor for 1MDB.

Thomas, as a good obliging AG, followed the instructions to the letter, even though he himself would have preferred V Sithambaram to do it. Sri Ram was far from being the favourite of Thomas.

What many of us do not understand is why Thomas was so adamant that he had given the fiat for Sri Ram to prosecute Rosmah in her corruption case, when it is clear that the current Attorney-General Idrus Harun had done that.

What is Thomas talking about when he said he had an overriding fiat and a blanket fiat that he said he could give to anyone, including Sri Ram? There is no more the need to follow Dr M’s instructions. Do what is right. The fiat Thomas had given earlier was not for Rosmah’s case. It is as plain and simple as that.

Thomas was also not above playing politics. The dropping of the charges against Lim Guan Eng and taking no further action (NFA) on the famous Sandakan video to protect the current senior minister are events under his watch. My sense is that if he had done the right thing, who knows, Harapan may still have some credibility with the people and perhaps still be in power.

Surely there are other competent criminal lawyers who can be appointed by the current attorney-general. We may detest the conduct of any accused person or persons, but he or she must be accorded a fair trial.

A fair trial includes following the right process under the law, such as validly appointing a lawyer to prosecute the case. Sri Ram certainly knows what is fair and how to act fairly.

So, will we get another non-Malay to be our attorney-general in future? There is a possibility but after Thomas, it will be harder. If this does come to pass, I hope that the person will not exhibit the same traits of brashness and arrogance as Thomas.

There are many competent lawyers in the AG's Chambers that deserve respect and are fully capable of becoming the AG. The person has to be impartial and not consider himself an AG for any ruling party. He or she must always remember the heavy burden of being a public prosecutor.

It will help if this person has humility in his bones and speaks Bahasa well. Most importantly, he or she must have the courage to disregard and stand up to the dictates of the prime minister, if necessary.

Always putting Malaysia first and the interests of the people as paramount is one cardinal rule that will be difficult for lawyers who are full of themselves to observe.