KUALA LUMPUR: Sacked Umno leader Datuk Khairuddin Abu Hassan will likely challenge a six-day remand order obtained by the police to investigate him for attempting to topple the government, said his counsel Matthias Chang.

“We are looking into filing the application tomorrow (today) in the High Court as the remand has no basis,” Chang told The Malaysian Insider yesterday.

Chang said the long remand was a sort of punishment for his client for handing over evidence related to the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) scandal to investigators overseas.

He said the police were investigating The Edge Media Group’s chairman Datuk Tong Kooi Ong and publisher Ho Kay Tat under Section 124 of the Penal Code for activities detrimental to parliamentary democracy but no arrest was made.

Khairuddin, who was dismissed from the party after he was declared a bankrupt, said in his Facebook posting last Friday that the police wanted to question him for handing in evidence related to the 1MDB scandal to the Swiss attorney-general’s chambers.

Khairuddin handed the evidence to the Swiss authorities on Aug 20, and urged the latter to investigate the debt-laden state investment arm’s activities involving Swiss and international banks. — The Malaysian Insider

This article first appeared in digitaledge Daily, on September 21, 2015.