Mat Zain wants cops to probe Shafee's affidavit

Former Kuala Lumpur CID chief Mat Zain Ibrahim today lodged a police report against senior lawyer Muhammad Shafee Abdullah for allegedly making false statements in a recent affidavit to the Court of Appeal.

The lenghty four-page police report also contained allegations that Shafee had concealed vital evidence regarding Anwar Ibrahim's "black eye" case, which implicates attorney-general Abdul Gani Patail.

Shafee, a senior private lawyer, was appointed the lead prosecutor in the government's appeal against a High Court decision to acquit Anwar of sodomising his former aide Saiful Bukhari Azlan.

The allegedly tainted affidavit was submitted last week in reply to Anwar's second application to disqualify Shafee from prosecuting.

Mat Zain's police report against Shafee is the latest twist, following the former's damning statutory declaration about the Abdul Gani's alleged mishandling of the Batu Puteh dispute with Singapore.

In his police report, Mat Zain reiterated that his statutory declaration dated Oct 7 over the sequence of events following his meeting with Shafee and former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad, was the true version and provided supporting documents including his phone records to back up his claim.

Documents handed to Shafee

Mat Zain said in his report that he had only met Shafee for the first time in his life during the meeting, although Shafee claims to have also met Mat Zain a day before on Aug 9 in his affidavit.

"It is clear that Shafee’s statements (regarding the exact circumstances of the meeting) are a deliberate fabrication based on his own imagination to confuse or mislead any party who are considering his affidavit in totality...

“(This is so) to make an erroneous decision on a critical subject, on the true nature of things, and on my credibility and that of the statutory declaration I made on Oct 7," he said in the police report, before describing his version of the events in detail.

On the "black eye" incident, Mat Zain wrote in his police report that he had delivered bundles of documents regarding the case to Shafee on Sept 24. He said that he had official confirmation of receipt from Shafee's firm.

But since there was no further correspondence from Shafee regarding the matter, Mat Zain said he chose to make a statutory declaration.

"After studying Shafee’s affidavit, I found that he has deliberately conceals from the court that he has received the bundle of documents on Sept 24," he said.

Probe by MACC

Anwar's application had used Mat Zain's statutory declaration was evidence that Shafee was complicit in other cases involving the PKR de facto leader.

In the statutory declaration, Shafee was alleged to have agreed with Mat Zain that Abdul Gani was alleged to have fabricated evidence against Anwar in the "black eye" case.

Since unveiling the statutory declaration, Mat Zain has been investigated by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC).

However, Shafee has brushed off the latter's allegations.