It was like Batman turning on Robin or the Lone Ranger disavowing Tonto. 

There was Low Teck Jho doing what fat fugitives do best, sunning himself surreptitiously in some swank spa at an undisclosed destination that Abdul Hamid Bador had yet to figure out…

… when the bombshell hit. 

His pal, helpmate and all-round best buddy threw him under the proverbial bus. 

Fearless Leader’s defence had been called in the case involving SRC International and Fearless rose to the challenge with his usual manly spirit.

 “Who, me?” screamed FL in shock and promptly professed his innocence by blaming everything and the kitchen sink on his plump protege and four other mysterious Middle Eastern gentlemen, none of whom planned to be around for the duration of the trial.

It was a crafty ploy built around a tried and tested legal philosophy: blame it on the bossa-nova also known as “if you can’t convince them, confuse them.” And it wasn’t surprising either because Fearless lawyer was a learned barrister who long ago had made nonsense of the saying “talk is cheap.”

Mohamad Shafiee Abdullah knew that talk was not cheap and legal work was never charity. That he preferred to leave to U2’s lawyers because they always worked pro-Bono. 

Even so, it was an astonishing admission that beggared belief. According to it, the real captain of the ship that saddled 1MDB with RM42 billion in debt was a beefy brigand whose name did not feature anywhere on its official records and whose whereabouts remained a mystery.

You might say confusion not only reigned, it poured. 

The bulging bandit was appalled by the news and didn’t know whether to be elated or angry. Like Fearless himself, the fat fiend had always professed innocence where 1MDB had been concerned.

He claimed he could not come back to Malaysia because he would not be given a “fair trial.” And when he invariably gave in to the American courts that seized his ill-gotten assets, his well-paid flunkies always added the proviso that the surrenders did not constitute an “admission of guilt.” 

Still, the chubby charlatan has steadfastly chosen to remain silent on the option of returning to the United States where he still faces several money laundering charges. Presumably the penal system there was not quite up to the mark. 

Secretly, however, the rotund rascal was pleased with Mr Shafiee’s description of him being the “leader of the pack” and the “brains behind the scheme.” The measure of that pleasure was almost always conditional to his distance from Malaysia and was inversely proportional to the Inspector General of Police’s ignorance of his whereabouts. 

The lamentable larcenist was getting increasingly philosophical in his old age and felt that the Malaysian authorities were getting too judgmental. For his part, he was all for letting bygones be bygones. 

Refreshed by the thought, the portly pirate dashed off a “Wish You Were Here” postcard to Fearless that generously allowed the detected defendant to heap even more blame on Fatboy. 

Because that was how real friends behaved.