KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 13 — Prominent lawyer Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah built a reputation for getting people off charges as grave as murder, drug trafficking and corruption, but is now in the dock just like his varied clients.
Shafee — used to working from the outside as counsel for high-profile politicians and businessmen — was formally accused today of the same crime for which he is defending former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak, who was charged last month with money laundering to the tune of RM42 million.
The 66-year-old lawyer is more recently known for successfully leading the prosecution in its appeal against the High Court acquittal of Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim in the Sodomy II trial, which saw the PKR leader imprisoned in 2015 and removed from mainstream politics as Pakatan Harapan (PH) went on to win the 2018 election without him.
That very case brought Shafee in the crosshairs of the authorities after a now-free Anwar, citing an affidavit from the Attorney General’s Chambers, accused the lawyer of receiving RM9.5 million from Najib for his role as lead prosecutor in the so-called “Sodomy II” appeal.
Shafee was charged today with two counts each of money laundering and failure to declare to tax authorities the RM9.5 million fees Najib allegedly paid him.
These are some of Shafee’s other high-profile cases in his controversial career, all of which he won.
Shafee represented the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) during a royal commission of inquiry (RCI) into the death of DAP aide Teoh Beng Hock at the agency’s then-Selangor headquarters in 2009. The RCI concluded that MACC officers’ aggressive interrogations had driven Teoh to suicide.
As a legal advisor to Umno, Shafee represented the Barisan Nasional (BN) government during the 2009 Perak constitutional crisis that saw the state fall to BN after three Pakatan Rakyat assemblymen defected from the now-defunct coalition.
Shafee initially defended former political analyst Abdul Razak Baginda when the latter was charged in 2006 with abetting the murder of Mongolian woman Altantuya Shaariibuu. The High Court acquitted Abdul Razak in 2008 when the prosecution failed to establish prima facie.
The high-profile lawyer also defended Tan Sri Muhammad Muhammad Taib when the former Selangor mentri besar was charged in 1997 with breaching Australian currency laws after failing to declare the cash he was carrying through Brisbane Airport worth US$1 million at the time. Mat Taib was later acquitted.
Shafee got former Perwaja Steel managing director Tan Sri Eric Chia acquitted in 2007, without his defence called, of criminal breach of trust charges involving RM76.4 million. Chia had been handpicked by then-PM, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, to turn the steel producer around, but it was declared insolvent in 1996 with reported RM10 billion in debts and losses.
Besides dealing with corruption, one of Shafee’s interesting cases was winning Bukit Bintang BN candidate Datuk Dr Lee Chong Meng’s election petition in 1995 against then-DAP lawmaker Wee Choo Keong.
Shafee acted for Tan Sri Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah’s camp in their challenge of Umno’s 1987 election that his client had lost narrowly to Dr Mahathir in the presidential race. The court declared the Malay party illegal.
One of Shafee’s high-profile crime cases was of Private Adam Jaafar. Shafee got his client off the death sentence when the court ruled temporary insanity, after the soldier went on a shooting rampage in Chow Kit in 1987 and caused one death from a bullet ricochet. The high-profile lawyer reportedly represented Adam pro bono.
In 2014, Shafee saved an Australian man named Dominic Bird from the gallows when his client was acquitted of drug trafficking. Bird had been accused of trying to supply an undercover police officer 167g of methamphetamine; possession of over 50g of the drug carries the mandatory death penalty. The prosecution’s case fell apart when Shafee highlighted allegations of corruption and even drug trafficking against that inspector from the Dang Wangi drug squad.
As DPP at the start of his 41-year legal career, Shafee prosecuted the 1978 Kerling case in which eight young Hindu men killed four Muslim extremists who had desecrated their temple. One of the accused was reportedly sentenced to eight years’ jail, while the others got four years.
Shafee also has a track record in human rights, though he once represented the Negri Sembilan state government in their challenge of a Court of Appeal ruling that held as unconstitutional a state Shariah law prohibiting Muslim men from dressing as women. The Federal Court overturned the lower court’s decision.
The then-BN government appointed Shafee as Malaysia’s ambassador-at-large for human rights from 2016 to 2018. He previously served as Malaysia’s representative to the Asean Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) from 2009 to 2015.
Shafee served as commissioner for the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam) from 2004 to 2010, during which he chaired a public inquiry into the arrest and detention of five lawyers from the Kuala Lumpur Legal Aid Centre in 2009. The lawyers had been arrested together with Bersih activists at a candlelight vigil for activist Wong Chin Huat, who was detained for sedition over allegedly protesting the BN takeover of Perak that year.
