DR MAHATHIR Mohamad will file a judicial review application to block the royal commission of inquiry report on foreign exchange losses if the RCI does not stop distributing its findings.

“We intend to write to the Secretariat for the RCI on Monday, to demand that it stop circulating or publishing the report until it has inserted all 495 pages of materials (including Dr Mahathir’s written submission) in the report,” said the former prime minister’s lawyer, Haniff Khatri Abdulla.

“We will give them until Friday to forward a positive response, failing which, we will file a judicial review application to prohibit the publication of the half-cooked report and prevent it from being shoved down the throats of the palace, Parliament and public unfairly and dishonestly, in carrying out the crooked political agenda of Prime Minister Najib Razak.

“The commissioners were dishonest to the king and the public. They did not submit at least half of what should have been submitted in the report, not even counting the submission by Anwar,” Haniff told The Malaysian Insight.

“It is misleading because the public does not know the materials and the arguments rendered by Dr Mahathir’s counsel against the so-called evidence considered by the RCI in its report.”

Dr Mahathir’s written submission totalled 256 pages, which included arguments against his alleged involvement in the forex losses, which the RCI concluded to be RM31.5 billion, between 1992 and 1994.

The remaining 239 pages were talking-point applications in written form.

Among others, it requested that former Bank Negara Malaysia assistant governor Abdul Murad Khalid be questioned by watching brief lawyers, and that the RCI panel, led by Petronas chairman Mohd Sidek Hassan, refrain from making conclusions before the hearing was over.

Haniff said the RCI had summarised all the applications in three pages, and that the transcript of the verbal questioning by the panel, conducting officers and watching brief lawyers was also missing from the report.

“There was no transcript of Dr Mahathir’s replies to the questioning. How will the people determine the validity of the RCI findings when they have no access to the transcript, which was deliberately and maliciously left out?

“The report is incomplete and handicapped, and gives the impression that Dr Mahathir said nothing and did not respond to the RCI’s allegations against him.”

The findings of the RCI report, which was presented to the Yang di-Pertuan Agong on October 13, were tabled in Parliament yesterday.

It further concluded that the losses involved a criminal breach of trust on the part of Nor Mohamed Yakcop, a central bank adviser who was in charge of the forex portfolio at the time.

Blame also went to Dr Mahathir and Anwar, who the RCI said were liable to be investigated for common intention or abetting.

Yesterday, RCI secretary Dr Yusof Ismail lodged a police report in Putrajaya based on the commission’s findings.

Police have set up a special team following the lodging of the report. – December 1, 2017.