PKR Youth have lodged a police report over allegations that Prime Minister Najib Razak had paid prominent lawyer Mohammed Shafee Abdullah RM9.5 million from a 1Malaysia Development Berhad slush fund account.

PKR Youth deputy chief Dr Afif Bahardin said if there was truth in the article, it meant there was a concerted effort to move funds to Shafee, and a political conspiracy to put then opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim back in jail.

Shafee was appointed as lead prosecutor, a move which raised eyebrows, in Anwar’s sodomy trial at the Court of Appeals in 2014 where his acquittal was overturned.

“The transfer of money coincided with Anwar’s case. We are not saying the Sarawak Report story is the gospel truth. We want the police to investigate the claims,” he told reporters outside the Central Seberang Prai district police headquarters today.

Whistleblower site Sarawak Report reported in its article “Najib Paid Anwar’s Prosecutor RM9.5 Million From 1MDB Slush Fund WHY?” on May 31 that Shafee was the “biggest individual recipient of money from Najib’s 1MDB slush fund accounts”.

It reported that Najib allegedly paid Shafee RM5.2 million in February 2014 and RM4.3 million in September 2013.

The site said the money came from the bank account “that had been identified as having been funded by money from the 1MDB subsidiary SRC, which had borrowed some RM4 billion from the civil service pension fund (Retirement Inc Fund) KWAP”.

Shafee did not respond to calls or messages by The Malaysian Insight.

“This happened when PKR was getting ready for the Kajang by-election in 2014. There are too many coincidences,” Afif said.

He said Anwar could have contested in the by-election, won and become Selangor Mentri Besar that year if the Court of Appeals upheld his acquittal.

Afif added that PKR Youth would be mobilised to lodge similar police reports at other police jurisdictions to push for an investigation.

PKR Machang Bubok assemblyman Lee Khai Loon said the allegation was shocking, as it was already inappropriate for the government to appoint Shafee, who was known to be an Umno lawyer, as the lead prosecutor in Anwar’s case.

“At the time, it was argued that his appointment was not right. Now we are shocked by these claims.

“The police need to find out what happened if there is basis in the claims reported by Sarawak Report,” he said.

The report was lodged at the Bandar Perda police station by Bukit Mertajam PKR Youth chief Mohd Ikhwan Nasser Mohamad Isa. – June 2, 2017.