Rosli Dahlan: Stand for principles, not personalities
MACC officers have legal remedies available to them in the face of wrongful action by their superiors, he assures.
(Free Malaysia Today) – Lawyer Rosli Dahlan’s willingness to act for Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) officers caught up in the crossfire between embattled Prime Minister Najib Razak and his detractors, as reported by Malaysiakini yesterday, has taken many Malaysians by complete surprise.
Eight years ago, just prior to the Hari Raya Aidil Fitri celebrations, Rosli himself had been arrested at his office by several MACC officers.
Rosli claimed that he was fixed up for acting for former Commercial Crimes Investigation Department chief Ramli Yusuff, and was made to face a dubious charge in the Kuala Lumpur Sessions Court under the MACC Act 1997, a case which came to be known in the media as the ‘Copgate affair’.
A few days short of his trial, however, Ramli, who had also been tried for a similar offence, was acquitted by the Sessions Court without his defence being called.
That acquittal prompted Rosli to write an impassioned plea to current MACC chief commissioner Abu Kassim Mohamed.
“Don’t allow this hallowed institution to be used as a tool to oppress the innocent and to suppress the truth,” he wrote, “because, rest assured, one day that may well be the downfall of MACC!”
“Those words seem now to have acquired a prophetic meaning,” Rosli lamented in an interview with FMT today.
“I have so far won all my cases,” he points out. “The Star, Utusan, NST and MACC have all paid me damages and published apologies.”
Turning to the political turmoil the country finds itself presently in, Rosli says, “Attorney-General Abdul Gani Patail (who is incidentally one of the defendants in the civil suit taken out by Rosli) has been dismissed from office, and the MACC, an institution set up to fight corruption, is on the brink of total decimation.”
“The MACC should never have allowed itself to be used for any improper purpose,” Rosli says. “The Rule of Law has been destroyed and the institution has been left in tatters and discarded.”
Which begs the question why Rosli would be willing to defend officers of the very organisation which he claims were determined to bring him down in the first place, and despite the fact that he has two on-going civil suits against several of its key personalities past and present.
“We must stand by principles, not personalities,” he says. “We must support the MACC from external interference.”
“We must also support Gani in the face of his removal, which was clearly an obstruction of justice.”
