PKR leader Badrul Hisham Shahrin has dropped a bombshell in his latest blog posting. MACC officers went to the Kuala Lumpur International Airport and interviewed one A Krishnan, whose name had appeared on a screenshot of the Customs database indicating First Lady Rosmah Mansor's alleged purchase of a RM24.4 million diamond ring.
However, it is not clear why the MACC interviewed the Operations Manager, whether to find out who blew the whistle on the transaction or to investigate if the ring had indeed been ordered by Rosmah and why was tax not paid on it.
"I got to know from my sources that following my report, MACC officers went to KLIA to probe the matter. They had detained one A Krishnan for hours over the matter before releasing him at 3am," Badrul said in his blog posting (scroll below).
"My report must be accurate or else why would MACC officers want to probe the matter at KLIA and bring in the officer for questioning?"
Pasting on a fresh lie
Badrul also insisted he would continue to expose further details as and when it was timely, despite clear and concerted efforts by Prime Minister Najib Razak's administration to cover up the scandal,.
"I am not so arrogant as to say 'go ahead and sue me' but if it happens, I will take it as chance to provide more exposes on Rosmah's costly jewelleries," Badrul wrote.
Despite its beauty, the gorgeous diamond ring imported from New York-based jeweller Jacob & Co has brought a heap of scandal and public ill-will to Rosmah and Najib.
The 60-year old First Lady, whom Badrul referred to as 'Imelda' Rosmah to highlight her love for the lavish, has side-stepped questions on whether the ring belonged to her. As for Najib, he had over the weekend denied his wife and their family had anything to do with the ring.
But few Malaysians believed him and many accused him of hatching a fresh lie cover the old ones. Over the weekend, his minders wangled an apology from Indonesia's top newspaper Kompas over the ring. Kompas had on August 4 reported the ring as being Rosmah's and also broke news that Maira Nazarbayey, the mother of their Kazakh son-in-law, had connections to the Russian mafia.
Seizing opportunity, the Malaysian government media immediately front-paged the apology, giving the impression that the news report was wrong and defamatory. Yet Kompas never issued any official apology and did not retract the August 4 report.
It was the Editor and Senior Reporter who apologized when they were flown in from Jakarta for a rare interview extended by Najib. It is believed they expressed regret for having caused embarrassment to Najib and family, and not for falsely reporting about the ring and Maira.
It is not the first time that Najib and Rosmah have been caught in such situations, compounding their loss of credibility.
