WHEN Mohd Shukri Abdull heard that two senior Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission officials had been transferred in the fallout of the widening 1Malaysia Development Bhd probe, he lost it.

He shot WhatsApp messages to ministers in the Prime Minister’s Department Shahidan Kassim and Paul Low, demanding that the transfers be reversed.

“I was not really thinking about myself. So I (sent) WhatsApp (messages) to Shahidan Kassim and Paul Low.

“I told them, ‘please return my officers, if not, I will do something crazy’. I was ready. I threatened them,” the MACC chief told reporters today, recounting his experience during the agency’s 2015 investigation into SRC International, which was under 1MDB.

He said luckily, the ministers responded. They gave him advice, and promised him that they would return his men to MACC.

“I told them that I did not care about promises. They are politicians. Just return my officers. They finally did.

“I was ready to arrest the person who signed the duo’s transfer letters when I returned home. I would do everything in my power to get them back.”

He said he was in Washington when he received news on the transfers, and had “cried like a baby” as he felt guilty that his men were bearing the brunt of the punishment.

Shukri flew to Washington on July 31, 2015, after getting information that he would be arrested and charged with conspiracy.

He said the government had him followed even when he was in the US, and that when he was in New York, he had sought protection from the New York Police Department, which provided him with three bodyguards.

He said he got photographs of the person tailing him, and sent them to Azam Baki, who was appointed as MACC deputy chief commissioner in 2016.

He told his friend to pass the photos to the then inspector-general of police, Khalid Abu Bakar, with the message: “Tell him to get a smarter officer to follow me.”

Khalid retired last year, and was succeeded by Mohamad Fuzi Harun, who is former Special Branch director.

Shukri said the threats issued against him, his officers and then MACC chief Abu Kassim Mohamed did not stop as the team continued to build its case. – May 22, 2018.