Ex-Umno leader Khairuddin Abu Hassan to stand in Jasin
An Amanah source says he is the best candidate to upset the Barisian Nasional stronghold in GE14.
PETALING JAYA: Expelled Umno leader Khairuddin Abu Hassan will be fielded to contest in the Jasin parliamentary seat in the upcoming general election, an Amanah source revealed.
“He is the ideal candidate to create an upset in the Barisan Nasional (BN) stronghold,” the source told FMT.
Jasin is one of the 27 parliamentary seats allocated to Amanah in the peninsula by the opposition Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition.
The seat, once represented by the late deputy prime minister Ghafar Baba, is composed of 72% Malay voters, 18% Chinese and 10% Indians.
In the 2013 polls, BN’s Ahmad Hamzah defeated Rahmat Yusof of PKR by 11,763 votes.
Khairuddin was held under a security law in 2015 for allegedly sabotaging the nation’s banking and financial services.
Last year, the Sessions Court acquitted him and lawyer Matthias Chang as the prosecution had not presented any evidence linking them to the charge.
They had been jointly charged under Section 124L of the Penal Code for being at police stations to make reports against state investor 1MDB.
The charge sheet stated that the two were at the office of the chief of police Economic and Finance Criminal Division in Paris, Charing Cross police station in London, the Attorney-General’s Office of Switzerland in Berne, Wai Chan police station in Hong Kong and Cantonment police headquarters in Singapore.
Two months ago, the Federal Court also dismissed an appeal by Khairuddin and former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad to link Prime Minister Najib Razak to the financial losses suffered by 1MDB.
The apex court held that Najib was immune from a lawsuit for alleged misfeasance in public office as he was not a public officer.
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