PETALING JAYA: Bersatu has denied a report that its president Muhyiddin Yassin was responsible for appointing a former Umno man to a newly-created party post.

However, Bersatu information chief Tun Faisal Ismail Aziz did not say who was responsible for Ali Mohamad’s appointment as the party’s deputy information chief.

Tun Faisal also said Ali’s appointment did not need to be brought before the Supreme Council as there was no such requirement under the party’s constitution.

He also described the anonymous Bersatu leader quoted by FMT in its report as a “lousy, untrustworthy source”.

“Why quote information from an anonymous, dubious source without checking with me first, as the party’s information chief?” he said in a Facebook post.

FMT had quoted the Bersatu leader as saying that Ali’s appointment was made unilaterally by Muhyiddin without being brought to the Bersatu Supreme Council.

The leader questioned the “special treatment” given by Muhyiddin, adding that the post of “deputy information chief” had never previously existed and appeared to have been newly created.

Ali, the former Melaka Umno deputy chairman, joined Bersatu in April last year.

A former Senate deputy president, he is currently being held in remand by graft busters in relation to a corruption probe.

A Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission source was previously reported as saying that a former Senate deputy president had allegedly accepted bribes between 2021 and 2023, purportedly in connection with the award of a concession for land reclamation work off the Melaka coast at Kota Laksamana.

Tun Faisal had questioned Ali’s arrest, saying he was not one of the decision makers on behalf of either the state or federal governments in the award of the concession.

He also questioned the timing of the arrest, telling Malaysiakini that it only took place after Ali had left Umno and joined Bersatu, and suggested that it might be yet another case of selective prosecution.