Divorces are fun,
except for the people and families involved. Divorces of the rich are particularly stimulating as couples
fight over money, and argue about interpretations and accuracy.
So the divorce hearing
of Datuk Seri Mahmud Abu Bekir Taib looked to get itself a certain amount of
notoriety. However, it is turning
out to be remarkable for reasons far away from the personal life of a long-separated
and honestly rather boring couple.
For Datuk Seri Mahmud Taib is the son of Tun Abdul Taib Mahmud, who when
this marriage started was a powerful Chief Minister of Sarawak, and as the
divorce started was under increasing energetic attack for corruption, and as it
drags on is the Governor of that state.
When one looks hard – as
the MACC has apparently been doing – the evidence of corruption is hard to
find, while the slick and extraordinarily funded (how much DOES it cost to run
a radio station based in Taiwan, or the South Pacific, or wherever Radio Free
Sarawak is?[1])
campaign gets shriller and shriller.
And yet, when the
evidence is examined the smoking gun is not immediately apparent. The anti Taib shriekers will tell you
that his brother Onn Mahmud was controlling the sales of timber to Japan. It turns out that he wasn’t, and the Japanese tax authorities
proved this. When Malaysiakini
repeated the allegation it lost a lawsuit, and had to retract and apologise[2]
(not that you would know that it had been disproved, if you just read Sarawak
Report - they keep reporting the story as if it had never been disproved by two
court cases in two different countries).
Then came the
revelations in this case, where the wife, Shahnaz Abdul Majid, produced
testimony that her ex husband had billions of ringgit in over a hundred
offshore bank accounts, mainly in Switzerland. As he denied this, the implication was that these were
SECRET accounts, and we were all told that this is where the family stored its
corrupt money. Oh, and they didn’t
just tell US: the evidence from
that case was used in a blanket campaign in Switzerland where it became the
basis of a motion by outraged MPs, and the same evidence was circulated, if the
activists are to be believed, to law enforcement and companies and compliance
officers and banks and newspapers across the globe[3].
But the court in which
the evidence was given never actually SAW the evidence. It was never tested: It was not subject to any of the tests
that such damning and important evidence should be. And now, at last we are hearing Datuk Seri Mahmud’s side. He doesn’t just claim it was
exaggerated, or twisted, or misrepresented. He explains that the whole lot was completely made up by a
notorious Canadian forger, Cullen Johnson who alternated between hacking bank
accounts and – when he failed – forging the results for his clients. Not once, but maybe a hundred times
over a decade.
If Datuk Seri Mahmud is
wrong, no doubt Shahnaz and her legal team will publish the evidence in full,
as he is challenging them to do.
What a coup for them: To
prove that Datuk Seri Mahmud is not only extraordinarily rich, but a liar in
court. So far, they haven’t done
so, and the evidence elsewhere seems to indicate that Datuk Seri Mahmud may be
telling the truth. Cullen Johnson,
you see, was arrested for these crimes, and the US Government extradited him
from the Turks and Caicos Islands, from where, on the run, he seems to have
supplied the Shahnaz camp with the “evidence”…[4]
And now Mr Johnson and
his accomplices have done a plea bargain with the Feds, and explained how he
worked for so long as a hacker and forger.
So presumably his
evidence on individual cases is leaking out, and Datuk Seri Mahmud can stand up
and be taken seriously. But this
raises three questions:
Who is responsible for
the evidence brought by the Shahnaz camp, in a case which increasingly looks
more like a political circus than a court? When they asked Mr Johnson to get them the evidence they
used, were they thinking that they were hiring a criminal hacker, or a criminal
forger? In producing the apparent
product of this in a Malaysian court, how many professional and criminal lines
did they cross?
 |
| Is that the 'Dr' in songkok? |
We should be impressed
by Shahnaz’s legal team led by Dr Mohd Rafie bin Shafie, who is in close orbit
of Anwar Ibrahim. Surely he
wouldn’t have used Shahnaz and this cobbled together evidence to pursue a
political vendetta? Surely he
would know his responsibilities?
And surely he would know a fake when he saw it? This is, after all a man who proudly
calls himself Doctor Rafie, based upon a PhD from Washington International
University. No, not Washington
State. Washington International University. I would commend readers to Google “Washington International University” and
scam or accreditation[5]. Surely this is a man we can trust?
And in terms of
defamation, given that this story echoed round the world and started a handful
of corruption enquiries, who is liable …
?
The Mahmud-Shahnaz post has the trappings of a great plot for a Malaysian TV script, rather than the mundane predictable thrash churned day-in day-out. Journalists should also investigate the depths of this case. Makes newspaper reading interesting.
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