HEADS must roll in PAS because the leaders lied to the members, said former stalwarts of the Islamist party who are now in Amanah, following Nik Abduh Nik Abdul Aziz’s confession that he was ordered to lie and deny a audio recording that PAS receiving millions from Umno.

Amanah vice-president Husam Musa said Nik Abduh should go further and name all the party leaders who received the money.

“It has come out that he (Nik Abduh) had got the party leaders blessings to deny the recording. The party members and the grassroots need to ask the party leadership to resign because they were lied to,” Husam told The Malaysian Insight.

“Nik Abduh must tell the public how much money he received from Umno, and what it was used for.

“He must also publicly say who else besides him has taken the money; in the recording he said that other PAS leaders took money, he owes it to the public and the party members to name them.”

Husam is a former PAS vice-president who was sacked from the party in 2016 for criticising the party leadership. He subsequently joined PAS splinter party, Amanah. 

Husam had in 2017 made the same claim that PAS had received funds from Umno, but was accused of slander . The allegation that PAS was paid RM90 million by Umno was first reported by whistleblower site Sarawak Report in 2016.

“I raised this matter a long time ago but they (PAS) accused me of slander. It now turns out that my claims were factual and correct,” Husam said. 

Yesterday, Nik Abduh took to Facebook to say he had wanted to come clean about the recording, but PAS leaders, including president Abdul Hadi Awang, had told him to deny everything.

He said Hadi had given him his blessing to lie and that he had obeyed the president to protect the party.

Until yesterday, Nik Abduh, who is the Bachok MP, had maintained that the recording was “nonsense and slander”.

Amanah vice-president Mahfuz Omar told The Malaysian Insight that the audio recording, whose authenticity has been confirmed by Nik Abduh’s admission, showed the extent of the relationship between PAS and Umno leaders. The parties were previously seen to be old enemies fighting over the Malay-Muslim vote.

“We knew about it (when we were in PAS) but it was all rumours only. The fact that this is coming out now just shows the extent of their relationship from that time,” he said. 

Mahfuz said Hadi had given Nik Abduh his blessing to lie “because they were scared that members would question them and revolt.”

CIA link 

What was even more damning, Mahfuz said, was Nik Abduh’s admission that he had contact with the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

“In my opinion, his ties with the CIA are more damning than the relationship with Umno

“A top party man in PAS shouldn’t be consorting with the CIA; he could have divulged vital national secrets to them which they could use against the country,” he said. 

In the audio recording, Nik Abduh is heard saying he can talk to the CIA “who always contacts me”.

Amanah yesterday lodged a police report against Nik Abduh, calling for an investigation into PAS leaders’s ties to the CIA

The recording was circulated last year ahead of the general election in May

The claim that PAS had received RM90 million from Umno was also the subject of a defamation suit filed by Hadi against Sarawak Report over its 2016 allegations.

Hadi subsequently offered to settle the case out of court, which was accepted by the defendant, which caused an outcry and a police report to be filed, leading the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission to open a probe into Sarawak Report’s claims.

Nik Abduh is among several PAS leaders who have had their statements recorded by the anti-graft agency. – February 15, 2019.