Petition urges King to sack Tommy Thomas due to poor BM skills

PETALING JAYA: A Malaysian has initiated an online petition urging the Yang di-Pertuan Agong to sack Attorney General Tommy Thomas (pic) for his weak command of Bahasa Malaysia.

The petition at change.org, started by Fyizuddin Jaafar on Wednesday (July 4), has since garnered over 1,765 signatures.

Ironically, the statement was riddled with several grammatical and spelling mistakes.

Below, is the description of the petition in verbatim:

"AG WITHOUT BAHASA MELAYU QUALIFICATION MUST NOT BE CONSIDER TO BE APPOINTED AS AN AG. THIS IS AN EMBARRASSING TO THE COUNTRY AND MALAYSIAN TOO. THIS ALSO WILL DAMAGE THE BRAVERY OF THE HONOURABLE HIS MAJESTY YDPA. WE SUPPORT YDPA FOR REPLACING AND FIRED THE EMBARRASSING AG OF MALAYSIA. NO MORE JOKES ON THIS SERIUS MATTER PLEASE."

On Wednesday, former premier Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak was charged with three counts of criminal breach of trust and one count of using his position for gratification as part of a probe into money missing from state fund 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB).

Thomas, who led the prosecution team against Najib, had requested the court for permission to proceed in English, instead of Bahasa Malaysia, the national language.

Tommy himself has admitted that he had to "brush up" on his command of the national language.

"The trouble is with private practice, which I had for 42 years, dealings with clients, basically commercial clients and documents ... I have neglected my Bahasa. I promise to brush it up," he was quoted as saying.