PUTRAJAYA, Thurs:
MP for Jerlun Datuk Mukhriz Mahathir has questioned the timing of allegations of extra-judicial interference against his father Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad by a High Court judge.
Mukhriz, who is also Umno Youth exco member, said Datuk Ian Chin should have brought up the matter when his father was still the prime minister.
“Why only now he (Chin) decided to raise the issue when my father is no longer the prime minister and Barisan Nasional losing several states (to the opposition)? To me, he certainly has an agenda,” he said after a budget consultation session for BN backbenchers by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi at the Finance Ministry today.
Mukhriz said he was very sure that his father would come up with his own defence.
Chin had claimed that Dr Mahathir threatened to punish the judiciary for decisions he did not like in 1997. The Borneo Post reported that Chin made the stunning allegation at the start of proceedings on Monday when hearing an election petition filed by Wong Hus She, the defeated DAP candidate for the Sarikei parliamentary seat.
Anticipating a motion for him to be recused, Chin took the “step to disclose what the parties and counsel may not be aware of but which they may later complain that I should have disclosed”. Wong lost the Sariket seat to Barisan Nasional’s Ding Kuong Hing by 51 votes.
Chin had referred to two cases he had presided over in February 1997, the decisions which, he claimed, the then prime minister was apparently displeased with. He said Dr Mahathir had gone to the judges’ conference later “to issue a thinly veiled threat to remove judges by referring to the tribunal that was set up before”.
Chin also claimed he was “packed off to boot camp” for lessons on taking the government line in judicial decisions.
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