“The AG is in fact the prime minister’s nominee. This is just an example: Let’s say the PM commits an offence, do you expect the AG to charge him?

“He (AG) can, but the prime minister will retaliate by advising the Agong to sack the AG and appoint a new one,” said the former Court of Appeal judge during a media conference at the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) building here today.

Mohd Noor is part of the MACC’s special independent panel which also includes former Inspector-General of Police Musa Hassan.

Earlier, both Mohd Noor and Musa attended a five-hour meeting at the MACC building and suggested the commission engage instead with AG Apandi Ali after the latter ordered both cases regarding the RM2.6 billion donation and RM42 million from SRC International, closed.

On Tuesday Apandi announced that Prime Minister Najib Razak had been cleared of any criminal wrongdoing for accepting the money in his personal bank accounts in 2013.

When asked for his opinion on Apandi’s decision, Mohd Noor said it was Apandi’s exclusive right as the AG, to decide whether or not to prosecute an individual.

However he said, that in his opinion, Apandi had “overstepped a little” when he ordered an independent body such as the MACC, to close both cases.

The former judge added that the MACC should be given free access to investigate until all investigations were complete.

“We have to rely on the AG whether to prosecute or not. But he should let the MACC continue its job until the end.

“It is not palatable for the AG to say stop investigations because the power of the AG is to decide whether he wants to prosecute or not and to evaluate evidence. But don’t say MACC should stop their investigations.

“When the (independent) panels said MACC should engage with the AG, it meant that the panels were not happy with the AG telling the MACC to stop investigations.

“It was couched in a polite form,” Mohd Noor explained.