Breaking news! Another victory for Rosli Dahlan: Court of Appeal stays AG’s bid to expunge
Din Merican
The tenacity of lawyer Rosli Dahlan in pursuing his persecutors whom he called the “rogues in government” has to be admired. On 3rd January, all the mainstream media gleefully reported that the Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC) had succeeded to expunge six parts of Rosli’s Witness Statement. The mainstream media would give wide coverage whenever the AGC scores a victory against Rosli but would be almost silent when they get walloped by Rosli.
Only last week, we saw The Star newspaper defeated and humbled by Rosli. Yet, The Star made no mention of it until they had to publish the Public Apology that the court ordered against them. That is the state of disinformation, misinformation and lies in our country perpetrated by the mainstream media. They are no longer newspapers reporting news but are just instruments of propaganda.
On 28 November 2012, the AGC had asked the Court to prevent Rosli from testifying in open court and also toexpunge certain parts of his witness statement relating to theCopgate Affair and other matters. On 3rd January,MalaysiaKini reported that Justice Hue Siew Kheng had ruled in favour of the AGC that the allegations made in Rosli’s statement were “riddled with hearsay” and were not relevant.
The parts that the AGC wanted expunged described how AGGani Patail, former IGP Musa Hassan and the MACC had conspired to fix up Rosli. It narrated IGP Musa Hassan’s connection with the underworld Along loan shark syndicate; why AG Gani Patail was upset with Rosli for foiling his plans not to charge MAS’s former Chairman Tan Sri Tajudin Ramli for defrauding the national airlines; also of the MACC’s attempt to extort Rosli to drop his RM50miliion law suit against them.
In 2011, RPK’s Malaysia Today revealed that AG Gani Patailhad a “special relationship” with Tajudin’s proxy, ShahidanShafie, a former police inspector who was charged for corruption in the 1990s. Tabung Haji’s documents showed that AG Gani Patail and family had enjoyed the Zamrud Hajj package that costs more than RM 260,000/- bringing into question if the trip was paid by Shahidan since they all shared rooms like one big happy family.
Expunging these parts of Rosli’s witness statements would have meant that none of these would be revealed in court. It means that Rosli would have to go to trial without thesematerial evidence being allowed to be tendered in Court.That’s why the AGC was intent on blotting out theseevidence. But despite that setback, Rosli persevered and soldiered on alone.
However, the irony in the AGC’s application was that they had reproduced the whole expunged questions and answers. Similarly, all the expunged parts have also been reproduced in the written judgment of Justice Hue. This is a comedy of errors!
While on one part, they wanted to hide these stories from the public, on the other hand, they have reproduced all these in a public document! Where is the logic?
