Judge rejects remand application after Musa’s arrest

PETALING JAYA: Embattled former Sabah chief minister Tan Sri Musa Aman has been arrested at a private hospital where he is being warded after returning from Eng­land on Tuesday.

Sabah police commissioner Dat­uk Ramli Din confirmed that Musa was arrested at 10am at his hospital bed yesterday.

However, magistrate Norshah­irah Abd Sa­­lim rejected the police remand application for the 66-year-old, who is facing a probe by police and graft-busters which also concerns a criminal intimidation report lodged by Sabah governor Tun Juhar Mahiruddin after the 14th General Election.

It was learned that Musa had his statement recorded by police late yesterday in connection with Juhar’s report.

Sources said that at the remand hearing at the hospital, Musa’s lawyer Amer Hamzah Arshad informed the magistrate that Musa had left the country through “proper channels” to seek medical treatment and to attend to personal matters.

It was learned that the various correspondence between Musa’s lawyers and the police were also shown to the magistrate to show that he was willing to cooperate.

The application for remand was made by the investigating officer Deputy Supt Ramasamy Kuppan.

In Kota Kinabalu, there is talk that Musa could be sworn in as the Sungai Sibuga assemblyman as early as today.

Sources said he was expected to fly back to Kota Kinabalu early today, though it was uncertain if he was well enough to do so.

Senior leaders from Sabah Umno and its partner Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS) said they looked forward to meeting Musa.

Sabah Umno secretary Datuk Seri Masidi Manjun and Sabah Umno chief Datuk Hajiji Mohd Noor said they planned to visit him if he was still at the private hospital in Subang Jaya.

PBS information chief Datuk Jahid Jahim said he believed members of the Sabah Umno secretariat were already in the federal capital to meet Musa, who remains the Sabah Barisan Nasional chairman.

At the hospital’s VVIP suite, its personnel and security were on alert against unauthorised visitors.

While checks on the registration list by the hospital concierge confirmed that Musa was indeed warded in one of the VVIP suites, a nurse on duty claimed that the room was unoccupied.

Reporters waited outside the suite on the pretext of wanting to meet other visitors, but the nurse maintained that no one was scheduled to come and that the rooms were “off limits”.

Meanwhile, de facto Law Minister Datuk Liew Vui Keong said Musa should corroborate his claims of illness with a medical report instead of just a photo on Facebook posted by his political secretary.

He said while there were unsubstantiated claims on social media about Musa’s so-called “medical conditions”, his son Yamani Hafez, who is the Sipitang MP, was seen in a photograph standing beside Musa, who looked to be all right.

Liew chided Yamani for showing complete disregard of his responsibility as an MP and disrespect to Parliament by not attending the swearing-in ceremony held last month.