MACC: Stop Persecuting the Innocent and We will Work with You
Did Rosli receive any corruption? Did he do anything wrong? No! All Rosli did was to defend his client Dato’ Ramli Yusuff who was being fixed by the IGP and A-G Gani Patail. The evidence is there staring at us when Kevin Morais and all the MACC witnesses now admitted that Rosli was just a witness. And yet they brutalised and humiliated him. Fortunately, and Thank Almighty Allah, Rosli did not die like Teoh Beng Hock.
by Din Merican
Last week was the anniversary of Teoh Beng Hock’s death. Teoh Beng Hock died while in the custody of the MACC. Teoh Beng Hock was found dead flung outside the office of the MACC at Plaza Masalam. He died in the process of an investigation although he was not a suspect. Teoh Beng Hock died although he was just a witness in an investigation over an allegation of abuse of a wakil rakyat’s allocation of RM 2,400. Teoh Beng Hock died over a meagre RM 2,400. That is the value of life to the MACC!
Beng Hock’s Spirit haunts MACC
Teoh’s family is still in mourning over his death. Teoh’s child is born into this world without knowing his father. Teoh’s spirit must be restless that it cannot leave Plaza Masalam. That was the suspicion and superstition why the Selangor MACC moved out of Plaza Masalam. MACC must think that by moving out of a place or building or changing its name and slogan will stop the hauntings. MACC must realize that until Teoh’s killer is found and punished, the haunting will not stop. Having a Coroner’s Inquest to whitewash Teoh’s death will not erase the eternal stain that a witness had died in the hands of the MACC.
The Inquest is getting nowhere
Unfortunately, the Inquest is now seen as involving the Courts to be complicit in the whitewashing of Teoh’s death. The Judiciary ended up being implicated. The Inquest ended up losing credibility when the expert witness, the forensic expert from Thailand, Dr Pornthip Rojanasunand was vilified by the Minister of Home Affairs and the Minister in charge of Parliament. That is what happens when our vital institutions do not act as a check and balance to the excesses and abuses of the executive arm and its instruments. The Courts must do more to restore confidence in its independence and dignity.
Tun Salleh Abas, Sodomy 1 and Sodomy 2
There are many more things that have happened that make the public question the independence of the judiciary. Already the Tun Salleh Abbas(left) saga has battered the image of the judiciary. Then strange court rulings were made in Anwar Ibrahim’s prosecution in Sodomy I and now Sodomy II. The latest Court of Appeal’s decision which reversed the High Court’s ruling on the interviewing of witnesses beyond office hours was a direct spillover of Teoh’s case. That decision did not make sense despite being delivered by our own law lords of the superior courts. It does not take a genius to know when a decision is unfair or idiotic. That was how the public perceived many of the the superior courts’ decisions in over turning more logical and reasonable decisions of courts lower to it. Common sense is not the exclusive property of judges of the superior courts. In the end, the Judiciary is looked upon with scorn and ridicule.
Sessions Court Judge Abu Bakar Katar to continue with the Lawyer Dahlan Case
Last week also, I received a facebook message from a very senior DPP who had just left the Legal Service and is now in private practice. He wanted to tell me that the Chief Registrar of the Federal Court had directed that Sessions Court Judge Abu Bakar Katar shall continue to hear Rosli Dahlan’s case to its conclusion. He also said to me that civil activists should not undermine independent public institutions like the courts.
While this was certainly good news to Rosli and to Malaysians, the message that the former senior DPP wanted to convey to me was clear enough – that we should trust the Courts and our Judges. That all the suspicion circulated about our Courts and our Judges as being just another instrument of a repressive regime should stop. That attacks on the independence of our judiciary should stop. That our Chief Justice Tun Zaki Tun Azmi shoud be given a chance to rebuild the tattered reputation of our judiciary.
After all that I have said above, do you blame the Malaysian public for looking at the courts with grave suspicion? I felt that this former senior DPP was hitting back at me for the previous articles that I wrote criticising the courts for being complicit in changing the goal posts to favour the MACC in the Trial of Rosli Dahlan.
I reported almost verbatim about the lies by MACC DPP Kevin Morais. Just when the Investigating Officer Saiful Ezral was being grilled and began to contradict himself and Kevin Morais, DPP Dzulqarnain behaved in a most dsepicable way to disrupt the trial time and again and again. And the final straw was when they attempted to change Judge Abu Bakar Katar. Do you blame me in reporting all these injustice?
However, as a civil activist, I accept that I must be impartial. I must commend the good that is being done. For that reason, let me now produce the letter by the Chief Registrar Tuan Hashim Bin Hamzah: Acrobat Document
