Dr M may seek judicial review to block circulation of Forex RCI report

KUALA LUMPUR: Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad will file a judicial review application to block the circulation of the Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) report into Bank Negara Malaysia’s (BNM) foreign exchange (forex) losses in the 1990s if the commission continues to distribute the report.

Dr Mahathir’s lawyer Haniff Khatri Abdulla said that the RCI secretariat would be given seven days to respond to the demands.

“We intend to write to the secretariat for the RCI on Monday (Dec 4) to demand them to stop circulating or publishing the current report until they have inserted all 495 pages of Dr Mahathir’s materials in the report,” he said in a statement yesterday.

“We shall give them until Friday, Dec 8, to forward a positive response. Failing which, we shall put in a judicial review application to prohibit the publication of the ‘half-cooked’ report,” he added.

The report also said that the then finance minister had “deliberately concealed the facts and information and made misleading statements to the Cabinet”. The finance minister at the time was Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim while the prime minister was Dr Mahathir.

The RCI also implicated Tan Sri Nor Mohamed Yakcop, who was in charge of BNM’s forex dealing operations at the time.

The losses incurred by BNM’s forex dealings between 1992 and 1994 amounted to RM31.5bil.