The Malaysian Insight

SYED Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman has upped the ante by challenging former Bersatu members to deny that they, too, were offered bribes to ditch the party, following police reports filed against him by his former party colleagues. 

Syed Saddiq’s targets are former Bersatu vice-president Hamidah Osman and founding member Kamarul Zaman Habibur Rahman, both of whom today lodged separate reports against him for alleging that they were approached by the same people who had approached him with inducements to leave Bersatu.

In a press conference at Bersatu headquarters this evening, Syed Saddiq said he did not accuse Hamidah or Kamarul of accepting bribes.

He said that during Monday press conference, he had taken pains to make it clear that other members were offered similar inducements to leave Bersatu. He said he did not say that these members accepted the offers.

“I was very precise with what I said. I only said that the offer to me was similar to the ones offered to other founding members. 

“But I did not say that whether or not they accepted the offers or that it was the main reason they left they party. I don’t know (if they did or did not),” he said today.

“I hope Hamidah will take legal action against me, since she has lodged a report with the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC), I will also do the same.”

Hamidah, who left Bersatu last month, lodged a report over claims she was offered money to quit the party. Kamarul Zaman lodged a police report against Syed Saddiq for alleged defamation. 

Syed Saddiq said he knew of such offers as Hamidah and Kamarul Zaman had informed the party’s top leadership of the offers several times at meetings. 

The Bersatu youth chief next trained his guns at the “mastermind” who commission people to “buy” Bersatu members.

“Why hasn’t he come forward? He should be the one lodging reports against me with the police and MACC,” he said, referring to a senior aide to Prime Minister Najib Razak, whom Syed Saddiq had named in his Monday press conference.

Syed Saddiq had caused a stir when he revealed that he was offered RM5 million to leave Bersatu and further his studies in Oxford University in the United Kingdom.

The 25-year-old said the same group of people had approached him with the offer three times since June last year. He said he decided to blow the whistle on them after they allegedly threatened to reveal things about his family if he did not take up their offer.

Syed Saddiq was to have announced that he was leaving Bersatu to further his studies in the UK, but he disclosed to the press the RM5 million offer instead. – October 4, 2017.