Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Hanipa Maidin said today that the corruption cases of former Selangor menteri besar Dr Mohd Khir Toyo and Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng were "poles apart" and therefore could not be accorded the same treatment.

In a statement to Malaysiakini, Hanipa, who is in charge of legal affairs, deemed comparison between the two cases as "careless" and said he, himself, had followed the two cases closely over the years, even of late, studying their respective case files.

Even so, he did not elaborate on the manner in which the two cases were different. Saying that he did not wish to "write a thesis", Hanipa added: "It is enough to say that I would be lying to myself if I said the two cases were the same and should be given the same 'treatment'...