KUALA LUMPUR — The morning Tan Sri Azam Baki spent nearly two hours at Bukit Aman giving a statement to police was, by his account, a formality. He had already decided on his next move before walking through those doors.
The former chief of Malaysia’s Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) said on Wednesday that his lawyers had been instructed to serve a legal notice against businessman Albert Tei as quickly as possible, escalating what had been a weeks-long war of accusations into the courts.
“My lawyers will serve the notice as soon as possible,” Azam told reporters after departing Bukit Aman. He submitted evidence he said demonstrated no direct contact had ever taken place between himself and Tei — a central plank of his defence against allegations that have dogged him since his six-year tenure at MACC came to an end last month.
What made Azam’s appearance at Bukit Aman significant was not the statement itself but the parallel track running beneath it. He was not merely cooperating with a police probe into criminal intimidation; he was simultaneously preparing to turn the legal machinery against the man who lodged that probe in the first place. The two moves — compliance and offence — arrived on the same day.
The dispute traces back to a police report filed on May 13 by Tei, who alleged he had been threatened through his lawyer when he tried to surface an alleged corruption scandal involving high-profile politicians in the Bornean state of Sabah. Tei, a businessman with links to the mining sector, claimed that a lawyer who represented him at the time met Azam at MACC headquarters in January 2025, where Azam purportedly requested a written assurance that Tei would stay silent if the Sabah politicians returned his money.
“At that time, I did not dare to report the matter to the police or anyone else as I was afraid of retaliation from him, because he held the position of chief commissioner of MACC and had the power and influence to persecute me,” Tei said after going public with the allegations. He described the former chief as a traitor to the country.
Azam’s denial has been unequivocal and, at times, blunt. When MalaysiaNow first approached him after Tei named him publicly, he dismissed the allegations to Malaysiakini in terms that left little room for ambiguity. In subsequent days, speaking to Bernama and then to Astro Awani, he went further. He denied not just the January 2025 meeting but any awareness of Tei as a person — never met, never spoken to, never instructed any lawyer to deal with him.
“This is something fabricated to confuse the people and damage the reputation of MACC and myself,” he told Astro Awani. “The public needs to know the real facts. That is why I am taking legal action immediately through my lawyer.”
Bukit Aman Criminal Investigation Department director Datuk M. Kumar confirmed the investigation is being conducted under Section 506 of the Penal Code, which covers criminal intimidation. Police had already recorded statements from Tei and from the individual accused of conveying the threat to him before summoning Azam. Kumar said two separate statements had been taken before Azam was called in to assist.
The case exposes a structural awkwardness that Malaysia has never fully resolved: what happens when the country’s chief graft investigator becomes the subject of an allegation that implicates the very system he was meant to uphold. Tei’s account, if it holds up, would suggest that a whistleblower attempting to expose politicians for corruption was instead steered away by the head of the anti-corruption body itself. Free Malaysia Today reported that Azam’s lawyers were already preparing documents as early as May 27, nearly a week before his appearance at Bukit Aman.
Whether the defamation suit proceeds quickly or drags through preliminary filings, it will force both sides into formal proceedings that affidavits and cross-examinations — not press conferences — will ultimately decide. The Sabah politicians Tei originally sought to expose have not been publicly named in the latest round of exchanges.
What remains unresolved is the question that sits at the centre of this dispute: whether evidence Tei says he holds, in the form of text messages and recordings, will be assessed formally by investigators or end up as exhibits in a counter-suit. Azam said he has submitted his own evidence to police. The two accounts are irreconcilable, and neither side has offered any indication of willingness to step back.
