Peguam negara perlu jelaskan DNAA Nicky Liow / Attorney general must explain Nicky Liow’s DNAA

[ENGLISH VERSION BELOW] Kami, organisasi masyarakat sivil yang bertandatangan di bawah, menggesa Peguam Negara Dusuki Mokhtar untuk menjelaskan kepada umum keputusan untuk tidak menyambung kes pengubahan wang haram terhadap ahli perniagaan Nicky Liow Soon Hee, yang berhadapan 26 tuduhan di bawah Akta Pencegahan Pengubahan Wang Haram, Pencegahan Pembiayaan Keganasan dan Hasil Daripada Aktiviti Haram 2001 yang berjumlah lebih RM36j.

Peguam Liow mengesahkan bahawa beliau telah “dilepaskan tanpa dibebaskan” atau DNAA pada 15 Jun 2023 selepas peguam negara menerima representasi yang dikemukakan bagi pihaknya.

Selepas lebih tiga tahun, peguam negara tidak memberikan alasan kepada umum mengapa representasi tersebut diterima, apa yang menjadi pertimbangan terhadap keputusan tersebut atau sama ada akan ada pendakwaan semula.

Ketelusan dan bukannya keputusan kes menjadi isu utama di sini. Orang ramai berhak mengetahui mengapa pendakwaan pengubahan wang haram berjumlah RM36j tidak diteruskan dan hanya tahu selepas tiga tahun apabila ada sidang media pihak beliau.

Corak pemberian DNAA

Kes Liow tidak berdiri sendiri. Malah kes ini menunjukkan corak di mana pendakwaan pengubahan wang haram dan korupsi telah digugurkan melalui DNAA, tanpa sebarang alasan, lalu dibiarkan sehingga dilepaskan dan dibebaskan (DNA) dan biasanya tertuduh tidak akan sampai ke peringkat perbicaraan yang lengkap.

Timbalan PM Zahid Hamidi telah diberikan DNAA pada September 2023 bagi 47 pertuduhan pecah amanah, korupsi dan pengubahan wang yang dikaitkan dengan Yayasan Akalbudi, selepas mahkamah mendapati ada prima facie terhadap beliau.

Pada Januari 2026, peguam negara mengkelaskan kes ini sebagai ‘tiada tindakan lanjut’ (NFA), dan Zahid kemudiannya memohon untuk dilepaskan sepenuhnya tanpa dibantah oleh pihak pendakwaan.

Baki pertuduhan Najib Razak pula memperlihatkan corak yang hampir serupa. Berasingan daripada sabitan yang kini beliau sedang jalani hukumannya, Najib telah diberikan DNAA pada November 2024 atas enam pertuduhan pecah amanah melibatkan RM6.6bn yang berkaitan International Petroleum Investment Company (Ipic), selepas pihak pendakwaan berulang kali gagal dalam tempoh masa enam tahun, untuk menghasilkan dokumen yang diperlukan oleh pasukan pembelaan untuk membuat persediaan bagi perbicaraan.

Beliau telah diberikan DNAA pada Jun 2025 bagi tiga pertuduhan pengubahan wang haram melibatkan RM27j yang berkaitan SRC International, selepas perbicaraan ditangguhkan sejak 2019.

Kami ingin mengingatkan kerajaan Madanai bahawa komitmennya untuk memerangi rasuah melalui tindakan yang telus dan tegas akan dinilai bukan sekadar berdasarkan tindakan memfailkan pertuduhan, tetapi juga berdasarkan apa yang berlaku terhadap pertuduhan tersebut selepas ia difailkan.

Corak di mana kes-kes berprofil tinggi melibatkan rasuah dan pengubahan wang haram dihentikan secara senyap, sebelum akhirnya membawa kepada pembebasan penuh tanpa sebarang penjelasan kepada umum atau diuji melalui proses perbicaraan, tidak boleh dianggap sebagai satu bentuk akauntabiliti.

Mengapa pemisahan tidak mencukupi

Inilah sebabnya mengapa kami konsisten menegaskan sepanjang perbahasan mengenai Rang Undang-undang Perlembagaan (Pindaan) (No 2) 2026 yang memisahkan jawatan peguam negara dan pendakwa raya, bahawa pemisahan struktur semata-mata tidak akan menyelesaikan masalah ini.

Kuasa untuk menghentikan sesuatu pendakwaan, sama ada melalui pemberian DNAA atau penerimaan representasi daripada tertuduh, tidak akan hilang apabila kedua-dua jawatan tersebut dipisahkan. Kuasa itu hanya akan berpindah kepada institusi yang berbeza.

Melainkan pemisahan ini turut disertakan mekanisme yang mengikat untuk mewujudkan ketelusan dan akauntabiliti, sama ada dalam bentuk garis panduan statutori dan bila budi bicara boleh digunakan, kewajiban memberikan alasan bertulis bagi menghentikan kes-kes berprofil tinggi, atau laporan tahunan yang memperincikan statistik berasingan mengenai kadar, alasan dan keputusan penghentian pendakwaan, dan akhirnya seorang pendakwa raya yang bebas tetap akan mempunyai keupayaan untuk menyelesaikan kes-kes seperti Liow, Zahid atau Najib tanpa sebarang penjelasan kepada umum, sebagaimana yang berlaku di bawah Pejabat Peguam Negara pada hari ini.

Kami telah mencadangkan agar mekanisme ini menjadi sebahagian daripada akta pemberi kuasa (enabling act) dan dikuatkuasakan serentak dengan pindaan perlembagaan ini, agar reformasi ini tidak hanya mengubah pihak yang memegang kuasa budi bicara, bahkan bagaimana budi bicara ini dilaksanakan, dijelaskan secara umum dan disemak.

Gesaan kami

Kami menggesa Jabatan Peguam Negara untuk mendedahkan secara terbuka asas, pertimbangan dan garis masa yang membawa kepada pemberian DNAA kepada Nicky Liow, serta menjelaskan pendiriannya berhubung pertuduhan-pertuduhan yang masih belum diselesaikan.

Kami juga menggesa jawatankuasa pilihan khas parlimen dan Parlimen untuk memastikan bahawa akta pemberi kuasa yang diperlukan bagi melaksanakan pemisahan jawatan peguam negara dan pendakwa raya sekurang-kurangnya memasukkan garis panduan statutori mengenai pelaksanaan budi bicara pendakwaan serta kewajiban laporan tahunan yang memperincikan, antara lain, statistik pendakwaan yang dihentikan, alasan penghentian dan hasil akhirnya.

Kewajiban ini hendaklah berkuatkuasa serentak dengan pindaan perlembagaan, dan bukannya pada suatu masa selepas itu.

Pemisahan tanpa mekanisme perlindungan ini berisiko menjadi perubahan pada nama sahaja, dan bukan perubahan pada intinya.

English version

Attorney general must explain Nicky Liow’s DNAA

We, the undersigned civil society organisations (CSO), call on Attorney General Dusuki Mokhtar to publicly explain his decision to discontinue the money-laundering case against businessman Nicky Liow Soon Hee, who faced 26 charges involving more than RM36m under the Anti-Money Laundering, Anti-Terrorism Financing and Proceeds of Unlawful Activities Act 2001.

Liow’s lawyer has confirmed that a discharge not amounting to an acquittal (DNAA) was granted and his client released on 15 June 2023, after the Attorney General’s Chambers accepted a representation on his behalf.

More than three years on, the chambers has offered no public account of why that representation was accepted, what considerations informed the decision, or whether the charges will ever be reinstated.

Transparency is the issue here, not the outcome of this one case: the public is entitled to know why a RM36m money-laundering prosecution was discontinued. They want to know why they only learnt of it years later, only through a defence press conference.

A pattern that cannot be ignored

The Liow case does not stand alone. It fits a pattern in which serious corruption and money-laundering prosecutions are discontinued through a DNAA, without public reasoning, and then left to lapse into a full and final discharge amounting to acquittal (DAA), often without the accused ever completing a trial.

Deputy PM Zahid Hamidi was granted a DNAA in September 2023 on 47 charges of criminal breach of trust, corruption and money laundering linked to Yayasan Akalbudi, after the court had found a prima facie case against him.

In January 2026, the Attorney General’s Chambers reclassified that case as ‘no further action’, and Zahid has since applied for a full acquittal, an application the prosecution has not opposed.

Najib Razak’s outstanding charges follow a related but distinct version of the same pattern. Separately from the convictions for which he is currently serving his sentence, Najib was granted a DNAA in November 2024 on six counts of criminal breach of trust involving RM6.6bn linked to the International Petroleum Investment Company (Ipic), after the prosecution repeatedly failed, over some six years, to produce documents the defence needed to prepare for trial.

He was granted a second DNAA in June 2025 on three counts of money laundering involving RM27m linked to SRC International, after that trial had stalled since 2019.

We remind the Madani government that its pledge to fight corruption through transparent and uncompromising action will be judged by what happens to charges after they are filed, not merely by their filing.

A pattern in which high-profile corruption and money-laundering cases are quietly discontinued and eventually lapse into full acquittal, without ever being explained or tested at trial, is not accountability.

Separation alone will not fix this

This is exactly why we have consistently maintained, throughout the debate on the Constitution (Amendment) (No 2) Bill 2026 separating the offices of the attorney general and public prosecutor, that structural separation on its own will not resolve this problem.

The power to discontinue a prosecution, whether through a DNAA or an accepted representation, does not disappear when the two offices are separated. It simply moves to a different office.

Unless that separation is accompanied by a binding mechanism for transparency and accountability, whether in the form of statutory guidelines governing how and when such discretion may be exercised, mandatory written reasons for discontinuing high-profile cases, or an annual report disclosing disaggregated statistics on discontinuance rates, reasons and eventual outcomes, a newly independent public prosecutor will be just as able to resolve cases like Liow’s, Zahid’s, or Najib’s in silence as the Attorney General’s Chambers today.

We have proposed that such a mechanism form part of the enabling act and come into force concurrently with the constitutional amendment itself, so that this reform changes not only who holds prosecutorial discretion but how that discretion is exercised, explained and reviewed.

Our call

We call on the Attorney General’s Chambers to publicly disclose the basis, considerations and timeline behind the DNAA granted to Liow, and its intentions regarding the outstanding charges.

And we call on the parliamentary special select committee and Parliament to ensure that the enabling act required to operationalise the attorney general-public prosecutor separation includes, as a minimum requirement, statutory guidelines on the exercise of prosecutorial discretion and disaggregated annual reporting to include, amongst others, discontinued prosecutions, and that this obligation comes into force together with, and not after, the constitutional amendment itself.

Separation without this safeguard risks becoming a change in form without a change in substance.

Endorsed by:

1. Project Stability and Accountability for Malaysia (Projek Sama)
2. Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs (Ideas)
3. Rasuah Busters
4. The Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections (Bersih)
5. Center to Combat Corruption & Cronyism (C4 Center)
6. Pertubuhan Ikram Malaysia (Ikram)
7. CSO Platform for Reform
8. Citizens International
9. Pusat Komas
10. Saya Anak Bangsa Malaysia (SABM)
11. Agora Society Malaysia
12. Transparency International Malaysia
13. Monitoring Sustainability of Globalisation (MSN)
14. PurpleLily Social Association
15. LLG Cultural Development Centre
16. Allied Coordinating Council of Islamic NGOs (Accin) Malaysia
17. KLSCAH Civil Rights Committee (KLSCAH-CRC)
18. KLSCAH Youth
19. Majlis Ekonomi Halal & Keusahawanan Ummah Malaysia
20. Persatuan Pemangkin Daya Masyarakat (Rose)
21. Lawyer Kamek
22. Mandiri
23. Suara Mahasiswa UMS
24. Oriental Hearts and Mind Study Institute (Ohmsi)
25. Angkatan Belia Islam Malaysia (Abim)
26. Siuman Collective
27. SIS Forum (Malaysia)
28. Engage
29. Aliran
30. University Malaya Association of New Youth (Umany)
The views expressed in Aliran's media statements and the NGO statements we have endorsed reflect Aliran's official stand. Views and opinions expressed in other pieces published here do not necessarily reflect Aliran's official position.

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