Akmal’s right to question PM on ‘house arrest’ issue, Zaid tells Adam

Zaid Ibrahim said as prime minister, Anwar Ibrahim cannot say he did not wish to be involved as it sets a dangerous precedent.

PETALING JAYA: Zaid Ibrahim has called out PKR Youth chief Adam Adli for hitting out at his Umno counterpart on the issue of Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s response to the house arrest bid by former prime minister Najib Razak.

The former law minister said Umno Youth chief Dr Akmal Saleh was right to ask if Anwar knew about the issue.

“Akmal is correct and Adam is wrong. The issue of Najib’s purported decree of house arrest is crucial in many ways. Akmal is entitled, just like so many of us, to ask if the PM knew about the issue.

“Adam is not the person to defend Anwar. He has to offer some serious explanation about the PM’s conduct,” Zaid said in a post on X (formerly Twitter) this morning.

Yesterday, Akmal had criticised Anwar for stating that deputy prime minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi had backed Najib’s attempt to serve the remainder of his prison sentence under house arrest in Zahid’s capacity as Umno president.

In a post on Instagram, he said the issue was about whether the government was going to abide by the king’s command.

The Umno leader said this in response to Anwar saying that he did not want to be involved in discussions about the “supplementary order” on the house arrest, which was purportedly issued by the former Yang di-Pertuan Agong, Al-Sultan Abdullah Sultan Ahmad Shah, during the Federal Territories Pardons Board’s meeting on Jan 29.

Adam then said Akmal’s comments were a slight to Anwar, who is the PKR president. He also wondered why Akmal could not accord the same respect to Anwar as the PKR wing had accorded to Zahid, as the Umno president.

In his post, Zaid also questioned if the Cabinet was kept in the dark by Anwar on other issues as well.

“Why are the ministers kept in the dark that they are now filing affidavits? The PM can’t say he did not wish to be involved. This is a dangerous precedent.

“How many more issues important to the country are unknown to us because the PM does not wish to get involved?” he said.

Zaid added that it was Anwar’s duty to inform his Cabinet of everything that happens, so that a decision could be made collectively.