PKR director of strategy Mohd Rafizi Ramli is not qualified to be considered a whistle blower nor eligible to be protected under the Whistle Blower Protection Act 2010, the High Court in Shah Alam was told today.

NONE Deputy public prosecutor Nahra Dollah said this was because Rafizi had exposed the financial documents of the National Feedlot Corporation (NFC), National Meat & Livestock Sdn Bhd and Agroscience Industry Sdn Bhd from Public Bank Bhd to the public.

Rafizi should instead go to the police or the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission if he wanted to be qualified as a whistle blower, Nahra added.

She was submitting in the hearing of Rafizi's application to quash a charge, under the Banking and Financial Institutions Act (Bafia), for revealing confidential banking details linked to the NFC issue.

Nahra said the court should not allow the application as it would not do justice if the sessions court could not hear the facts of the case.

She said if Rafizi's application was allowed, it would give a perception to the public that it would be all right for them to dispose any banking information to the public.

'Local whistleblowers' law weak'

The argument by Rafizi's counsel R Sivarasa that NFC executive chairperson Mohamad Salleh Ismail, who he claimed was the "fraudster" in the NFC scandal, should not be protected under Bafia was misleading, she added.

Rafizi, 35, is charged with revealing the account statements of the four Public Bank clients, to which he had access, to Yusof Abdul Alim and Erle Martin Carvalho at the PKR headquarters in Merchant Square, Jalan Tropicana Selatan, Petaling Jaya, on March 7 this year.

Muhammad Salleh was charged with two counts of criminal breach of trust (CBT) amounting to RM49.7 million at a sessions court in Kuala Lumpur on March 12 this year.

Meanwhile, Sivarasa submitted that a whistleblower like Rafizi should not be charged.

However, he said, the local whistleblowers protection law was weak as it was only intended to stop the people from going to the media.

He pleaded not guilty when he was charged in a sessions court in Shah Alam on Aug 1.

Judge Ghazali Cha set this Friday for his decision.

- Bernama