May 13 witness defends Kit Siang in flagpole incident
Clara Chooi, The Malaysian Insider
A 64-year-old man claiming he was in the vicinity of the former Selangor mentri besar’s home during the May 1969 racial riots came out today to refute allegations that DAP’s Lim Kit Siang had urinated on a flagpole inside the residential compound and perpetrated the bloody incident.
Ahmad Habib, who made a surprise appearance at a press conference with Lim this morning, told reporters that based on his memory of the residence’s layout, it would have been “impossible” for the politician to have survived committing the offensive act.
“On any normal day, I believe no unauthorised person would have been able to enter the compound, let alone do some funny business like urinating on a flagpole. It would be practically impossible.
“If a person tries to do this, I do not think he would have gotten away scot-free… he would have been arrested, hurt or even killed,” the father of two told the press conference.
Ahmad was speaking today in support of Lim’s denial that he had even been present in Kuala Lumpur when the May riots took place in 1969.
The issue was raised earlier this year following reports that the controversial movie “Tanda Putera”, to be released this November, on the re-telling of the May 1969 incident features a scene depicting Lim as having urinated on a flagpole of the then Selangor Mentri Besar Datuk Harun Idris’s residence.
Ahmad explained that he happened to be within the vicinity of the Selangor mentri besar’s residence on May 13 “by accident”, and had taken refuge for some 10 hours in an unknown individual’s house for some 10 hours when the bloody clashes erupted.
He said that after the police declared that it was safe to return to the streets in the early hours of May 14, he had walked some 200 metres from Lorong Raja Uda 1 to Jalan Raja Muda Abdul Aziz where the mentri besar’s house was located.
“There were a lot of people there. It was a huge compound. From inside, we saw the setting of the house. It was fully fenced and there was a guardhouse there. So I presume that with the guardhouse, there would definitely be someone manning this place,” he said.
Ahmad said the distance from the gate of the mentri besar’s home to the flagpole was some 20 metres, repeating that it would not have been possible for Lim to have traversed the distance just to urinate on the flagpole.
