Who’s the fool this April?
Art Harun
Friedrich Nietzsche said, “Unless you have chaos inside you, you cannot give birth to a dancing star.”
If that statement were to be applied to a nation – and that nation is our nation – and interpreted literally, I wonder how many dancing stars this blessed land of ours would have produced. Enough for a new cluster somewhere between the Milky Way and Andromeda perhaps?
It is April. We are just seeing off its first week. And what have we had this past week? A sex video. A murder in a religious school. And yet another death at MACC’s office.
Of course, I am not even counting the election in Sarawak; the faked egg story which appears in our newspaper today and porn downloading in the wee hours of the morning at MACC’s office (yes, it is MACC again) while a really important investigation on how a royal sum of RM2000 was being swindled was going on.
Let’s start with the death at MACC’s office yesterday.
According to the Star’s report and a statement by MACC yesterday, Selangor Custom and Excise assistant director Ahmad Sarbani Mohamed, was found dead on the 1st floor of the MACC’s office at Jalan Cochrane, Kuala Lumpur yesterday between 10.15 to 10.20am.
The late Sarbani was initially arrested by MACC on 1st April 2011 for investigations. He was released on surety on 2nd April 2011. According to MACC, he came to MACC’s office yesterday at about 8.26am requesting to see the investigating officer. The officers were having a meeting. He therefore waited at the lobby until 9.30am.
Later, he was escorted to an officer’s room in order to get the investigating officer to see him. The officer whose room was being used was with him.
At 10.15am, that officer left him alone in that room. He (that officer) left the room in order to get the investigating officer to come to see him.
That is the story as told by MACC.
I find the story strange. It is strange because what the actors in the story did defies normal human behaviour. I would ask the followings:-
i) the crime which was being investigated was widely reported by the mass media. It was an achievement of sorts. Now, here’s my question. When a suspect of a crime which has been described as some sort of a breakthrough came to MACC requesting to see the investigating officer, would any ordinary human being who is an investigating officer not regard that request as being very important? Wouldn’t any ordinary human being go to see the suspect immediately? Why was Sarbani made to wait in the lobby for 1 hour 4 minutes? What if he changed his mind about talking to the investigating officer? Wouldn’t that be a loss to MACC?
ii) what meeting were the officers having so early in the morning so much so that an arrested person who was out on surety but was back in MACC’s office voluntarily to talk about the investigation could not be attended to immediately?
iii) why would another officer (whom Sarbani never requested to see) escort Sarbani to his room when Sarbani actually asked to see the investigating officer?
iv) if the purpose of escorting Sarbani was to bring him to see the investigating officer, why wasn’t Sarbani escorted to the investigating officer’s room instead?
v) I find it odd that the escorting officer came to take Sarbani and brought him to his room to see the investigating officer. He then left to get the investigating officer. This is what MACC said:
“Penama tersebut kemudian telah diiringi oleh seorang pegawai ke bilik pejabatnya untuk mendapatkan pegawai penyiasat menemui penama tersebut. Pegawai yang mengiringi penama tersebut telah berada bersamanya dalam bilik pejabat pegawai berkenaan.
Pada jam lebih kurang 10.15 pagi, pegawai yang mengiringi beliau telah meninggalkan penama tersebut di pejabatnya dan keluar sebentar pergi mendapatkan pegawai penyiasat. Dalam beberapa minit kemudian, pegawai tersebut telah kembali ke pejabatnya dan mendapati penama berkenaan tiada dalam bilik berkaitan.”
vi) normal human behaviour would dictate that before the escorting officer came to escort Sarbani to see the investigating officer, the investigating officer would have been told that Sarbani wanted to see him. He would ensure that the investigating officer was already available. However, here we have a situation where the escorting officer brought Sarbani to his room. They then spent 45 minutes (from 9.30 to 10.15) in that room together.
vii) after 45 minutes in the room together, the escorting officer left Sarbani in that room alone. He left because he wanted to get the investigating officer. Why didn’t he get the investigating officer earlier?
viii) aren’t there telephones with extensions to all officers in MACC’s office? If so, why was there a need for the escorting officer to actually physically leave his room to go and seek the investigating officer?
ix) the body was found between 10.15 to 10.20am (the time was narrowed down to only 5 minutes). The escorting officer left Sarbani alone at 10.15am. He came back some minutes later. Does MACC want us to believe that within 5 minutes or so, Sarbani left the escorting officer’s room; walked around the MACC’s office; looked for a window to jump out from, opened it and jumped out? And he did all these without anybody seeing him, a total stranger, wandering around in the office? And not only that he did all those things within the 5 minutes window, his body was actually also discovered on the 1st floor within that 5 minutes window!
x) why didn’t MACC state on what floor was the escorting officer’s room?
xi) I also can’t help to wonder whether this time, the CCTV in MACC’s office would be in good working condition.
These are the questions which MACC should explain. For one death to happen in MACC’s office, allegedly by falling off from its building, is one thing. For two deaths to happen within two years in the same exact manner is another thing altogether.
