KUALA LUMPUR: Former attorney general Tan Sri Tommy Thomas is believed to have committed four offences based on the investigation into the contents of his memoir My Story: Justice In the Wilderness, said Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob.
The offences were under the Penal Code, the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) Act and the Official Secrets Act (OSA).
“We will leave this to the relevant authorities. If it is an MACC case, the MACC will investigate.
“If it is under the Penal Code, the police will investigate,” he told a press conference after attending a special briefing on the 15th General Election and the northeast monsoon at Bukit Aman here yesterday.
He said this when asked about the development of the investigation into the contents of the memoir.
Ismail Sabri said the report by the special task force that looked into Thomas’s memoir had been declassified and was now available on the website of the legal affairs division of the Prime Minister’s Department.
The publication of the memoir in January 2021 caused a public uproar, resulting in some 244 reports being lodged by various individuals and groups against Thomas.
Meanwhile, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad has defended his 2018 appointment of Thomas as attorney general, saying that the lawyer was known to be impartial in his job.
“We knew then that he was a lawyer who sticks to the rule of law,” said Dr Mahathir, who was back as prime minister in 2018.
“He was not biased in favour of the government. In fact, he was very critical of me when I was the prime minister. He was impartial. That was why he was appointed.”
Dr Mahathir’s remarks came following the government’s declassification of a report by a special task force on its investigation into allegations contained in Thomas’s memoir.
In an interview yesterday, Dr Mahathir said: “After he wrote the book, he started to give his opinions. But his appointment was done before he wrote the book.
“If I had to do it all over again, I would appoint a person who is not biased.”
He also refuted an allegation in Thomas’s memoir which said that a Malay government would be incompetent to run the country.
“This country has been independent for more than 65 years. For more than 60 years, the government of this country was dominated by the Malays.
“It became the ‘Asian Tiger’ and the best performing one above all the former British colonies,” he said.
“So you cannot blame the Malays for bad governance because they ‘grew’ this country whereas the British did not.”
He said the country was poor during British rule but it developed after gaining its independence.
