A Malaysian court charged Muhyiddin Yassin on Friday with corruption, making him the second former prime minister to be indicted — a development he has described as a ruse to crush the opposition ahead of state elections.
(Bloomberg) — A Malaysian court charged Muhyiddin Yassin on Friday with corruption, making him the second former prime minister to be indicted — a development he has described as a ruse to crush the opposition ahead of state elections.
Muhyiddin, 75, stands accused of misappropriating public funds from pandemic-era stimulus programs when he was prime minister from March 2020 to August 2021. He described the charges as “an organized political persecution.”
“Investigations were carried out and it was found that not a single cent entered my pocket while I was prime minister,” he told reporters at the courthouse after he was released on bail.
The allegations against Muhyiddin are an echo of former prime minister Najib Razak’s legal troubles when he was hit with multiple graft charges related to troubled state fund 1MDB when he lost power in 2018. He is currently serving a 12-year jail term.
Muhyiddin was charged on four counts of abuse of power in court and if convicted he could face up to 20 years in prison. Three companies and an individual had sent 232.5 million ringgit ($51.4 million) to his party’s bank account, according to the charge sheet.
He was also indicted with two counts of money laundering amounting to 195 million ringgit. He pleaded not guilty to all six charges and the court set bail at 2 million ringgit. He is set to face another corruption charge on Monday.
Muhyiddin said he was accused of abusing his power as premier to appoint contractors for a Covid-era stimulus project and to approve a tax exemption appeal made by the Al-Bukhary charity foundation. He denied the charges, saying he had no power to grant such approvals as they fell under the Finance Ministry’s purview.
Setback
The court cases will be a setback for Muhyiddin’s pro-Malay party and the wider conservative Perikatan Nasional coalition it leads as it prepares to compete against Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s Pakatan Harapan alliance in six state polls due later this year.
Muhyiddin and Anwar fought a tight general election race in November that resulted in a hung parliament. Muhyiddin has become one of Anwar’s most outspoken critics after a bitter contest for the premiership.
Shortly after taking office, Anwar had said “tens of billions of ringgit” in Covid-19 relief during Muhyiddin’s tenure was allocated without due procedure. The prime minister has said he will tackle the institutional corruption that has dogged the Southeast Asian nation for years even after 1MDB.
These allegations leveled against Muhyiddin raise questions regarding the use of rule of law in a country where governments have used legal cases against political opponents. Anwar himself was imprisoned on such a conviction in the 1990s.
“There are questions about consistency in terms of the application of the rule of law,” said Bridget Welsh, honorary research associate with the University of Nottingham Asia Research Institute Malaysia. “Malaysia has had a history of weaponizing corruption.”
The investigation process was free from any interference, the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission said in a statement Friday evening.
“The accusations that the MACC’s investigation was instructed by certain parties and was politically motivated were not true at all and has tarnished the reputation of this Commission,” it said.
–With assistance from Philip J. Heijmans and Anisah Shukry.
(Updates with statement from anti-graft authority.)
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