SHAH ALAM: Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) director of strategy, Mohd Rafizi Ramli, is not qualified to be considered a whistle blower nor eligible to be protected under the Whistle Blower Protection Act 2010, the High Court here was told yesterday.
Deputy public prosecutor Nahra Dollah said this was because he had exposed the financial documents of the National Feedlot Corporation (NFC), National Meat & Livestock Sdn Bhd and Agroscience Industry Sdn Bhd from Public Bank Bhd to the public.
Mohd Rafizi should go to the police or the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission instead if he wanted to be qualified as a whistle blower, she added.
She was submitting in a hearing of an application by Mohd Rafizi to quash a charge, under the Banking and Financial Institutions Act (Bafia), for allegedly revealing confidential banking details linked to the NFC issue.
Nahra said the court should not allow the application as it would not do justice. If the Sessions Court could not hear the facts of the case.
She said that if Mohd Rafizi’s application was allowed, it would give a perception to the public that it would be alright for them to dispose any banking information to the public.
She said the argument by Mohd Rafizi’s counsel, R Sivarasa, that NFC executive chairman Datuk Seri Dr Mohamad Salleh Ismail, who he claimed was the “fraudster” in the NFC scandal, should not be protected under Bafia was misleading.
Dr Mohammad Salleh was charged with two counts of criminal breach of trust (CBT) amounting to RM49.7 million at the Kuala Lumpur Session Court on March 12 this year.
Meanwhile, Sivarasa submitted that a whistle blower like Mohd Rafizi should not be charged.
However, he said the local whistle blowers protection was weak as it was only intended to stop the people from going to the media.
Mohd Rafizi, 35, was charged with revealing the account statements of the Public Bank’s clients (NFC, National Meat & Livestock Sdn Bhd, Agroscience Industries Sdn Bhd and NFC chairman Datuk Seri Dr Mohamad Salleh Ismail) to which he had access, to Yusof Abdul Alim and Erle Martin Carvalho at the PKR headquarters in Merchant Square, Jalan Tropicana Selatan, Petaling Jaya, on March 7 this year.
He pleaded not guilty when he was charged at the Session Court here on last August 1.
Judge Judge Datuk Ghazali Cha set this Friday for decision. — Bernama