The Director of Public Prosecutions Noordin Haji has said that he did not stop prosecuting graft cases.
Speaking on Wednesday, the DPP said that he only moved the case from the top of his priority list to focus on election offences.
He said this was because the country is in an electioneering period.
"I did not say I will stop prosecuting graft cases, I just said they will not be a priority for the next six months and my priority for the next six months is elections, election violence and electoral offenses. Those will come up," Haji said on NTV.
"Election issues will become number one and within election offences, there are corruption cases that will come in relation to that."
Haji noted that his office has limited funds and human resources, adding that dealing with all cases at once will be difficult.
He said that his office must be able to use the resources available to deal with immediate issues effectively.
"Some of the funding and prosecutors will be working on corruption cases, we have to prioritise in a way that they are reallocated to deal with some of these problems," the DPP stated.
In April, Haji announced that his office had halted approval of corruption files linked to politicians during the electioneering period.
"We don’t want to be accused of making decisions based on political leanings,” he said.
The DPP said his office will uphold international best practices on the prosecution of politicians accused of corruption, especially during election campaigns.
“As ODPP, we have a policy that in the run-up to the election, political files will not be acted on until after the elections. This is the practice globally,” he said.
