Universiti Malaya (UM) vice-chancellor Prof Dr Hashim Yaacob is looking for scapegoats because he was "embarrassed" by his botched handling of a leave application by economics lecturer Associate Prof Dr Edmund Terence Gomez.

Opposition politician Lim Kit Siang offered this interpretation of events, based on a malaysiakini report yesterday that Hashim has asked the UM Academic Staff Association (Umasa) head Assoc Prof Rosli Mamat to substantiate claims in relation to the application.

"Hashim will only be compounding his mishandling of the Gomez secondment issue if he now seeks to vent his spleen over the embarrassment he suffered as a result of the prime minister's intervention....(he is) gunning for easier targets, like...Rosli," he said in a statement today.

Lim said it was a major "loss of face" for the vice-chancellor, when his decision to reject Gomez's leave application was overturned by Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi on May 10.

Malaysiakini could not reach Hashim today for comment despite repeated attempts.

Early warning

Lim called on Higher Education Minister Dr Mohd Shafie Salleh to direct Hashim to stop "the campus witch-hunt".

"If Hashim goes on a witch-hunt to punish academics who have rightly spoken up in support of Gomez, Shafie will have to answer for Hashim's most non-academic and unscholarly conduct when Parliament reconvenes for the budget meeting in September," warned Lim, who is the Parliamentary Opposition leader.

He said the focus should be on restoring the international reputation of the country's premier university for academic excellence and freedom.

On July 12, Hashim had written to Rosli, seeking proof that Gomez's leave application had been supported by the dean and department head, as claimed.

The vice-chancellor stated that the administrative records did not show any such endorsement of the application.

This was in reference to Rosli's letter dated May 28, in which he had submitted an official appeal to the university to reconsider its decision to reject the leave application.

Gomez was, at the time, facing difficulty in obtaining two years' unpaid leave in order to take up a secondment at the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development in Geneva, from June 14.

He resigned on May 8 when his application for leave was rejected. Two days later, however, Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi intervened to approve unpaid leave, revoke the resignation and to advice him to continue speaking the truth.