Malaysia: Home minister Hamzah absent from IGP duties handover

• HOME Minister Hamzah Zainuddin was conspicuously absent on 3 May 21 morning at the handover of duties ceremony for outgoing Inspector-General of Police Abdul Hamid Bador and his successor Acryl Sani Abdullah Sani.
• Attending in Hamzah’s stead were his two deputies, Dr Ismail Mohamed Said and Jonanthan Yassin, as seen in a live broadcast of the event on the police Facebook page.
• No reason was provided during the event to explain Hamzah’s absence, but the minister has been at loggerheads with Hamid over the former’s alleged interference in the affairs of the police, in particular the matter of job appointments.
• Civil society and opposition politicians have also criticised Hamzah, who has admitted that his was one of the two voices in a leaked recording of a phone conversation discussing who to promote to the post of top cop.
• Meanwhile, Acryl Sani, 59, takes over as the police chief from Hamid, who was IGP for two years.
• A day after his formal retirement, ex-IGP Hamid once again took aim at Hamzah, saying that the home minister had wished to make “his boy” the Special Branch head to serve his political purposes.
• Hamid told the Malaysia Gazette Hamzah allegedly wanted “his boy” to head Special Branch as the police unit had been reluctant to take orders from him and had snubbed him.
• The ex-IGP told the news portal he was informed that the home minister had allegedly directed the Special Branch to conduct a number of operations for his own purposes.
• The former IGP said the unit had rejected Hamzah’s orders and had taken the matter up with Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin who agreed that the unit should not be serving political purposes.
• This, Hamid said, had enraged Hamzah and caused him to allegedly arrange for a retired Special Branch officer to take over the unit.
• The current Special Branch chief, Mohamed Farid Abu Hassan, was allegedly summoned by the chief secretary to the government in Feb 21 and told to voluntarily end his contract, to make way for the retired SB officer.
• The prime minister was again notified of this and he ordered for Farid to stay out.
• In his parting shot, Hamid said he had done his part by exposing the political meddling in the force’s business and that it was now up to Acryl Sani to deal with the problem.

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