Umno Youth chief Asyraf Wajdi Dusuki denied that it was trying to racialise the investigation into Thomas’ book to win Malay support, and accused Rafizi of not caring about the judiciary’s independence.

He questioned if Rafizi would support having a staunch Umno supporter appointed as the attorney-general, or an Umno Supreme Council member picked as the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) chief.

In a Facebook post, Asyraf said this was essentially what Pakatan Harapan did when it was in power, with the appointment of Thomas as attorney-general, and former PKR leader Latheefa Koya as MACC chief.

“Why didn’t Rafizi speak out at the time (when these appointments were made)? If Umno did the same thing, would Rafizi accept have it?” he asked.

He also questioned if abuse of power in the appointment of judges and selective prosecution were not important to Rafizi.

“Maybe Rafizi owes it to Thomas because, when the latter was attorney-general, many of Rafizi’s criminal cases were dropped, including one in which Rafizi was already told to enter his defence,” he said.

Yesterday, Rafizi said Umno Youth was trying to turn the investigation into Thomas’ memoir, titled “My Story: Justice in the Wilderness”, into a racial issue.

He claimed that this would not work as Malaysians, including Malay voters, were more concerned about their livelihood than the contents of the book.

Asyraf maintained that it was Thomas, and not Umno, who was “racist”, telling Rafizi that even PKR president Anwar Ibrahim had slammed Thomas for racial undertones in his memoir.

He said the probe into Thomas was not rushed, pointing out that the special task force formed to look into allegations in the book had taken nine months to complete its task.