Muhyiddin’s acquittal shows prosecution was politically motivated, claims Takiyuddin

PETALING JAYA: The High Court’s decision to free Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin of all four power abuse charges shows that the former prime minister’s prosecution was politically motivated and a form of organised political predation, claims PAS.

Its secretary-general Datuk Seri Takiyuddin Hassan said PAS strongly opposes the abuse of enforcement agencies as a tool to achieve political goals.

“The action against Tan Sri Muhyiddin is also to cover up the shame and divert the people’s attention from the issues happening in Umno which is part of the Pakatan Harapan and Barisan Nasional government under Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim,” he said in a statement on Tuesday (Aug 15).

Takiyuddin also said that the High Court’s decision had been expected by PAS as the party was convinced that the charges against Muhyiddin, who was also Bersatu president and Perikatan Nasional chairman, were selective and politically motivated.

“We as allies of Bersatu in Perikatan are absolutely sure that the accusations were a plan to weaken Perikatan, but I don’t see it will affect our performance, but instead has even added support to the coalition in the six state elections held last Saturday (Aug 12),” he added.

Perikatan had won 146 seats out of 246 contested, including making a clean sweep of Terengganu’s 32 state assembly seats in the Aug 12 polls.

Earlier on Tuesday (Aug 15), the High Court in Kuala Lumpur discharged and acquitted Muhyiddin of four charges involving abuse of power to obtain a RM232.5mil gratification for Bersatu.

Justice Muhammad Jamil Hussin made the order to discharge and acquit the Bersatu president after the court was satisfied that all four charges were defective, baseless and vague.

He said the charges did not show any details on the offence, causing the accused to be unable to give proper instructions to his team of lawyers.