A Turnover Overturned (Part 2)
A comprehensive consideration scintillatingly written of Dr. Munawar Anees? legal battle to clear his name in the Malaysian courtrooms and is left with what passes off for Justice in Malaysia ? Injustice. This is the concluding part.
We are now in the High Court
Needless to say, the Kuala Lumpur High Court, coincidentally presided over by the Honourable Attorney General’s very own brother, threw the application out of Court faster than you could say ‘travesty’ on the spurious grounds that the Applicant himself was not present. What this has to do with the price of guavas in Guatemala is anyone’s guess.
The fact that the Applicant was living in the USA, having hastily departed from this insanity immediately after his release from prison, which is completely understandable in the circumstances, and having to undergo intensive psychiatric treatment for his mental trauma, was no excuse for not being present in Court on those numerous occasions the matter was called up for disposal, but not disposed of.
Even an email tendered to the Honourable Judge by Manjeet explaining the Applicants predicament was obnoxiously discarded on the flimsy grounds there was no proof it was sent by the Applicant and received by his counsel, despite the word of counsel that it had.
Neither was it a sufficient excuse that the Applicant was well represented by a very senior and capable lawyer who was acting in his best interests, unlike some other lawyers we know of.
Neither was it of any consequence that the application for these diaries was merely an interlocutory matter where litigants seldom waste time turning up in Court unless they want to, not because they have to.
Neither did the Judge, anywhere in his lop sided judgment, ever address his mind to the justice that the application ought to have attracted.
What the Judge did in essence was to mould his judgment around the requirements of the prosecution (read: ‘being political correct and subservient to the powers that be’) and to put his official stamp on the piece of rubbish he tried to disguise as a well thought out and balanced opinion on the merits of the application. Who was he trying to kid?
Inevitably, an appeal to the Court of Appeal was filed against this decision.
In the meantime, another similar application was filed in the High Court for the same relief, which eventually suffered the same fate and therefore as a matter of course, ended up as an appeal before the Court of Appeal also.
Therefore, at this stage there were two appeals pending before the Court of Appeal relating to the refusal to release the lock up and prison diaries.
Why were these documents so important to Munawar?
The answer is simple. They would have established gross impropriety on the part of the police, the prosecution and the defence lawyer. That is why they couldn’t be allowed to see the light of day.
If Munawar’s statutory declaration is referred to, it will be seen that the police and the defence lawyer were harassing Munawar whilst he lay in his hospital bed, which was also his prison cell. Anyone calling to visit him would have their particulars recorded by the prison guard on duty outside the ward. This would form part of the prison records. This document would prove visits by officers of the Special Branch with Yacob Karim in tow, which in turn would corroborate what Munawar was accusing them of trying to do … persuading him to withdraw his appeal. Yes, even his own ‘counsel’! There is absolutely no reason for a police officer to visit a convicted person in jail unless he was being interviewed in respect of another offence, which he wasn’t, let alone with his own counsel, whose dubious ‘retainer’ had ended at the Sessions Court.
