ABDUL Hamid Bador, the Special Branch’s outspoken former number two man, began his duties today as the police’s intelligence unit’s new director.

Previously ousted and placed in cold storage for speaking out over the 1Malaysia Development Berhad scandal, Hamid stepped into his office at the Bukit Aman police headquarters this morning practically unnoticed.

The 60-year-old, who was removed from his position in 2015, is replacing Mohd Mokhtar Mohd Shariff, who left on early retirement.

Hamid was asked to return to service by Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad, a source who confirmed the appointment said.

Hamid was seen last week at Dr Mahathir’s office at the Perdana Leadership Foundation, where he had a private meeting with the prime minister.

He was at the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission yesterday, too, when the 1MDB special task force met for their first meeting, but left quietly by another entrance to avoid the press. Hamid is a member of the task force.

The police source said Hamid did not intend to hold any interviews with the press as he did not believe it was proper for the chief of the intelligence unit to be speaking in public.

“The SB director should not be seen or heard,” the source said.

MACC is in the process of questioning former prime minister Najib Razak over RM42 million from SRC International Bhd that went into his personal bank accounts.

SRC is a former subsidiary of 1MDB.

Hamid was given a desk in the Prime Minister’s Department and told it was a post created just for him, when he was transferred out of the Special Branch in 2015.

“If it was a form of acknowledgment, I did not see it as that,” he had told Sinar Harian then.

Hamid’s criticisms over 1MDB were about the shoddy way investigations had been done, and how Attorney-General Mohamed Apandi Ali had subsequently cleared Najib of any wrongdoing.

Before Hamid was transferred out, he was threatened by then Inspector-General of Police Khalid Abu Bakar with arrest.

After being placed in cold storage, he retreated to his farm in Negri Sembilan until Pakatan Harapan won GE14 on May 9 and he received a call from the Prime Minister’s Office. – May 23, 2018.