LAWYERS representing Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Anwar Ibrahim have criticised today’s proceedings by an inquiry into Bank Negara Malaysia’s (BNM) foreign exchange losses for barring access to the documents used by witnesses.

Neither has the royal commission of inquiry (RCI) provided a list of witnesses nor informed their clients, who were prime minister and deputy prime minister at the time of the scandal, respectively, if they will be called to testify.

“To be very honest, we find it difficult,” Dr Mahathir’s lawyer Mohamed Haniff Khatri Abdulla told reporters today at the Palace of Justice in Putrajaya where the hearing is held.

Haniff said lawyers have no initial access to the statements read out by witnesses. 

“We are only asked to read to the witness’ statement after he reads it… We cannot follow while reading and taking it down, especially when you are talking about numbers, figures and percentages.”

He said lawyers also have no access to documents the witnesses based their statements on, such as a government audit report which today’s witness, former BNM auditor Wong Yew Sen spoke about.

“What is more worrying and concerning is that they refer to another document, marked as document B, which is the annual report or the auditor’s report of these witnesses. We have not been allowed to have a copy of that report. So how are we going to know what’s going on?”

Hanif also refuted claims by the RCI panel and a lawyer holding a watching brief for BNM that the relevant documents were classified under he Official Secrets Act (OSA) and, therefore, could not be shared with the lawyers.

“That cannot be an excuse because the witness is already referring to that (classified) document. It’s now already in the public domain. He’s already given his explanation, so all of us should be allowed to look at the (audit report).”

Wong based his statement today on a classified document called “Audit report on foreign exchange operation division of Banking Department and processing section of Accounts Department as at December 31, 1992 dated January 21, 1994”.

Two witnesses at the RCI’s first hearing on Monday, both former BNM employees, also based their statements on classified documents. 

Dr Mahathir served as prime minister from 1981 to 2003, while Anwar started serving as finance minister and deputy prime minister from 1991 and 1993, respectively, until 1998. 

The central bank’s reported losses due to forex trading as RM9.3 billion in 1994, but the true amount is alleged to be US$10 billion or about RM25 billion then. 

Opposition lawmakers have called the inquiry formed by the Najib administration politically motivated, while Dr Mahathir has said it is meant to discredit him as he is now leading the opposition pact, Pakatan Harapan.

Meanwhile, Gurdial Singh, Anwar’s lawyer, said the former deputy prime minister still does not know if his statement was needed, even after being questioned by a special task force investigating the forex losses in April.

“The implication is that they’re not going to call him. So, if they condemned someone unheard, this is a serious breach of the mandate given by the Yang di-Pertuan Agong to look for the truth,” he said. 

“Not only are we denied access to documents, we are told we cannot refer to what is being stated by the witness as it is under OSA. If we quote parts of it which are already in the public domain, we run the risk we could be prosecuted later on.

“The way this RCI is being conducted is very, very unsatisfactory. I’ve participated in royal commissions before… we were given some latitude to ask questions… This whole process is quite ridiculous and very demeaning of the counsels involved,” Gurdial said.

Anwar earlier said he was concerned he could not defend himself before the RCI, which had on Monday heard the testimony of former BNM assistant governor Abdul Murad Khalid against Anwar.

Murad said when he informed Anwar about the scale of the forex losses in 1994, the latter, who was then finance minister, had expressed concern that he would have to resign from the post if the public knew the magnitude of the losses.

Anwar said this was a lie as he had never said such a thing to Murad. – August 24, 2017.