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Published: Saturday November 8, 2008 MYT 3:59:00 PM
Updated: Saturday November 8, 2008 MYT 5:21:21 PM

Salleh Abas was sacked, says Dr M

By SIM LEOI LEOI


PUTRAJAYA: Former Lord President Tun Salleh Abbas and five ex-Supreme Counct judges were indeed sacked and the pension paid to them was on “compassionate grounds”.

Former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, who was in charge of the Government’s administration during the 1988 sacking, said that “as far as he knew”, Salleh was “sacked” by the tribunal set up to try him.

“The judges were sacked, as far as I know. However, the pension was given on compassionate grounds as there was an appeal that despite them being sacked, Tun Salleh for instance, had rendered service to the Government in the years that he was a judge, and to cut him off completely would have been cruel.

“So, it was decided that we should give him a pension and so too for the other judges,” he told reporters Saturday after speaking at the Youth Values and Future Leadership forum at Perdana Leadership Foundation here.

Usually, Dr Mahathir said other civil servants who were sacked from the service were denied their pensions.

He was commenting on a statement by Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Mohamed Nazri Abd Aziz in Parliament that the six judges were paid a total of RM10.5mil as ex-gratia payment, with Salleh receiving RM5mil.

However, Nazri had also argued that the judges were not sacked or suspended as they had been receiving their monthly pensions while former de facto law minister Datuk Zaid Ibrahim had maintained they were.

Dr Mahathir said he knew for a fact that besides the RM5mil ex-gratia sum, Salleh was receiving three pension payments - one that he received after serving as a judge until he turned 55, another until 65 and yet another as the Terengganu state exco member when it was under the PAS administration.

“And now he gets RM5mil and I would like to congratulate him,” he said.

Asked if he was shocked by the amount paid out to Salleh or if the sum was sufficient, Dr Mahathir said:

“This you must ask the ex-de facto law minister. I think he has certain values that we don’t understand and he wanted to please the Opposition and the Bar Council.

“(Datuk) Zaid thought that the payment is sufficient but I don’t know whether this is sufficient or not.”

To another question, Dr Mahathir said it was up to the Government to decide whether it should ask for a partial return of the sum if this proved to be exorbitant.

“The Government is in the mood of being very nice to people and they have a lot of money to give. Then I think that (former Rural Development Ministry secretary-general) Datuk Dr Abdul Aziz Muhammad, who has been acquitted, should be given a lot more. I know him and he is a very nice man.

“He has suffered greatly and there has been a miscarriage of justice,” he said.

Dr Abdul Aziz was recently acquitted by the Kuala Lumpur High Court of abetment in committing criminal breach of trust (CBT) and of cheating involving RM9mil.

On another matter, Dr Mahathir said there should be a conference called to identify what went wrong with the world financial system in order for it to suffer such a massive and systemic collapse.

“The conference must be made up of people with experience and knowledge, and have no conflict of interest,” he said, adding that it was unlucky for Barack Obama to be elected as the next United States’ President at such a difficult time.

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