COMMENT | It was July 2017 and the 1MDB scandal had broken. It was the period when details of how large sums of money ended up in then-prime minister Najib Abdul Razak’s accounts were coming from various parts of the globe.

It was also the period that the whistleblower, former PetroSaudi International director Xavier Andre Justo ended up in the notorious central prison in Bangkok, popularly known as the Bangkok Hilton.

He had not spilled the beans on any individual but something was needed to distract Malaysians from what was to follow.

Who else but then-inspector-general of police Khalid Abu Bakar to come to the fore - threatening to arrest opposition leaders who had met Justo unless they came forward to give a statement?

As idiotic as the statement sounded, it was given the same treatment and the IGP came out none the wiser.

During a career spanning over five decades, this writer had the opportunity to...