Shafee should tell whistleblower client to keep quiet - Hajiji's aide

Summary:

• Sabah Chief Minister Hajiji Noor's political secretary indicates that the whistleblower is to blame for leaks of his MACC statement.

• Roland Chia urges lawyer Shafee Abdullah to reflect on how misinformation spreads.

An aide to Sabah Chief Minister Hajiji Noor has implied that any leaks in regard to the MACC probe on the state corruption scandal are likely to come from the whistleblower who exposed the case.

This is after the whistleblower's lawyer - Muhammad Shafee Abdullah - claimed Hajiji had "abused his power" to find out his client’s statement to the MACC which is supposed to be under the Official Secrets Act (OSA).

Roland Chia, who is the chief minister's political secretary, said in high-profile investigations involving multiple stakeholders, there are a variety of sources of information.

"More so since his client has been actively engaging in conversations with elected representatives, journalists, and other parties - and is still to date reaching out to them - it should hardly be surprising that such discussions extend beyond private circles.

"Rather than making baseless insinuations against the chief minister, Shafee would do well to advise his client to stop contacting elected representatives and journalists with speculative or misleading accounts aimed at shaping public perception," he said in a statement tonight.

Shafee’s client had released several videos implicating the Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (GRS) coalition members, whom the client had admitted to bribing.

Previously, a TikTok video showed Hajiji giving a speech in which he claimed he was “informed” that the whistleblower “did not admit to doing it” when MACC questioned the businessperson.

Chia in his statement, also turned the tables on Shafee who recently claimed another client of his - Najib Abdul Razak - was a victim of a political conspiracy by the US Justice Department to affect regime change.

"By his reasoning, he should reflect on how misinformation and narrative manipulation might be occurring in this situation as well.

"His client’s continuous outreach to elected representatives and journalists raises the very concerns he highlighted about false narratives being spread to the public," Chia added.

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