PKR vice-president Rafizi Ramli has dismissed any suggestion that Pakatan Harapan government would intervene in his jail sentence, saying he wants the courts to be fully independent in its ruling on his appeal.

 “We are true to what we preach. It is solely up to the judge. I do not know how the judge will look at it.

“There is not going to be any interference, I did not ask for interference, just pray the judge will look at it the way many others look at it,” Rafizi told Malaysia Decides in an interview. 

Rafizi and former Public Bank clerk Johari Mohamad were found guilty and sentenced to 30 months’ jail by the Shah Alam Sessions Court in February for breaching the Banking and Financial Institutions Act.

The two were convicted of leaking accounts information related to the National Feedlot Corporation, which managed the government’s cattle breeding programme.

Observers and analysts have said the charges were trumped up to punish the whistleblower for his exposes.

As a result of his conviction, the former Pandan MP decided not to contest in GE14.

Rafizi had in 2011 exposed the cattle breeder’s purchases of luxury condominium units.

NFC was run by Dr Mohamed Salleh Ismail, the husband of Wanita Umno chief Shahrizat Abdul Jalil. The company also received a RM250 million soft loan from the government during the Abdullah Ahmad Badawi administration.

Salleh was charged with four counts of misappropriating a total of RM49.7 million from NFC the same year, but was later acquitted of all charges.

In November 2016, Rafizi lost a defamation suit and was ordered to pay Salleh and NFC RM200,000 in damages for claiming that a bank loan taken by the company was used to purchase a condominium. – May 27, 2018.