Former Anti-Corruption Agency director-general Shafee Yahya has stood by his sworn testimony in 2000 where he alleged that former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad had interfered with the agency’s investigations.

Shafee said he would leave it to the authorities to probe the matter when asked to respond to Mahathir’s denial of wrongdoing in a letter that was published by The Sun today.

“You should refer back to my testimony in court,” he said during a phone interview.

In Shafee’s testimony during the Anwar Ibrahim corruption trial in 2000, he had claimed that Mahathir had ordered him to halt investigations on then Economic Planning Unit (EPU) director-general Ali Abul Hassan Sulaiman.

The issue was recently raised again by prominent lawyer Param Cumaraswamy who claimed that Shafee’s testimony was “sufficient evidence” that Mahathir could be charged for abuse of power.

He will not respond to Dr M

Following this, Mahathir in his letter admitted to meeting Shafee on investigations against Ali but claimed that discussions were confined to alleged highhandedness by ACA investigating officers.

Mahathir also suggested that Shafee was an “angry man” who is motivated by revenge and sought to “put me in a very bad light” through the sworn testimony.

Shafee told Malaysiakini that he does not want to respond to Mahathir’s letter as the authorities were probing the matter.

“I don’t want to be embroiled in this because it (the matter) is being investigated by the police and that it was a court case,” he said.

Shafee said he was unaware of the status of the police investigation but confirmed that they had called him in to take down his statement in 2000.

“I’ll leave it to the authorities to take action,” he added. "I'm already retired, I can't ask the police (for the result of their investigation)."