Shahrizat dodges NFC bribery query
(The Malaysian Insider) – Datuk Seri Shahrizat Abdul Jalil refused today to comment on allegations of bribery involving the RM250 million National Feedlot Centre (NFC) project run by her family.
PKR had disclosed earlier today an email detailing how NFC’s lawyer allegedly told the sender that an official in the company had been tricked into paying money to a “conman” to influence a police probe into the national cattle farming project.
“No, no, no, excuse me,” the Wanita Umno chief said when told that PKR had made a new claim regarding NFC before telling reporters to go “makan.”
PKR had claimed that the email was sent by a Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) advisory board member to a large private group on December 31, 2011, following a dinner with the NFC’s lawyer.
According to the email, the lawyer told the advisory board member how the NFC official had been tricked into paying money to a “conman” — understood to be Datuk Shamsubahrin Ismail — to allegedly influence ongoing investigations by the police.
“He (the lawyer) told us about this conman’s story, about how this sweet-talking guy managed to convince his desperate client to part with his money so that he can get the police to be ‘less brutal’ in their interrogation!
“It’s sad to see how stupid one can get when you are stuck ‘between a rock and a hard place’!” the email said.
Shamsubahrin was recently charged with cheating NFC chairman Datuk Seri Mohamad Salleh Ismail of RM1.76 million in fraudulent consultancy fees.
Mohamed Salleh, who is Shahrizat’s husband, had earlier said Shamsubahrin was neither a relative nor has he ever been an NFC employee.
