When MACC literally gets away with murder

By MT Webmaster Last updated Nov 5, 2015

As usual, in Malaysia you can commit numerous foul deeds in 22 years as Prime Minister but all you need to do is to show your face for a few minutes at a Bersih rally and all is forgiven and forgotten and you will now be called the greatest Malaysian that ever lived.

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

“The change in public perception can be attributed in part to Datuk Seri Zakaria Jaafar, who recently retired as MACC deputy commissioner (Management and Professionalism). Zakaria made headlines recently when he revealed in his retirement speech that MACC was in the midst of an investigation involving ‘the most powerful person in the country’,” said The Malaysian Insider today.

Zakaria said he was happy that public confidence in the commission had risen from 39% in 2009 to 68% in 2014. “We wanted to know the public’s confidence levels in us so we carried out a survey, and at that time it was only at 39%. That really shocked us. But it increased to 68% and our target for 2015 is 70%,” said Zakaria.

Well, that was what The Malaysian Insider reported today. And it looks like the focus of the MACC is to improve its public confidence level of less than 40% to 70% this year. So basically it was a public relations exercise to play with public perception.

But then playing with public perception can be a very dangerous game. First of all, humans have a memory of only 100 days, as Russia said when they shot down Korean Airlines flight 007. After 100 days people forget. So you need to keep feeding this perception with new ‘excitement’ so that the public confidence level remains high

Which means you have to keep talking and keep announcing the ‘latest news’ regarding that investigation into ‘the most powerful person in the country’. If not after awhile people will ‘cool down’ and the public confidence level would erode again.

Basically, you need people like Tony Pua to keep harping again and again non-stop about the issue and the MACC will ‘respond’ to Tony Pua’s nagging by ‘announcing’ the latest developments. Then the issue remains alive and the MACC’s public confidence level will continue to fly.

Secondly, it appears like they are building this ‘positive’ perception by going after what they said is the most powerful person in the country. By appearing to be out to get the Prime Minister, the MACC managed to boost its credibility rating by another 30%.

The question here would be, do they really have a case against Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak or is this just a game to create the perception that they are serious about combating corruption and even a man as powerful as the Prime Minister would not be spared the long arm of the MACC?

Of course, in the end if nothing happens and they fail to drag the Prime Minister to jail they can always blame ‘political interference’ for that failure. They will not admit that they failed because there was no case. They will say they were blocked from taking action and their 70% public confidence level will not suffer. In fact, they might even get ‘sympathy votes’ and would be able to boost the level to 80% or more.

Now, why in the first place was the MACC’s public confidence level so low? Zakaria said it was because “people accused MACC of not being transparent nor free.” Actually it was more than that. It was because two people were murdered while being interrogated by the MACC although the inquiry did not say it was murder but that they died due to unknown reasons and under mysterious circumstances.

DAP’s Teoh Beng Hock was interrogated for nine hours, according to the MACC, and then was freed at 3.45am. MACC said Teoh asked to stay the night at the MACC office where he was last seen alive sleeping on the sofa at 6.00am. At 1.30pm the following day he was found dead.

The MACC said Teoh had been freed and was allowed to go home. However, Teoh’s possessions including his mobile phone were still in MACC’s possession. This indicates that Teoh had not been freed and allowed to go home, as claimed, but was, in fact, still under MACC custody.

The MACC suggests that Teoh may have committed suicide. However, Teoh was supposed to get married the day he was alleged to have committed suicide. So the MACC story does not sound plausible.

The second person, Customs officer Ahmad Sarbani Mohamed, was a very religious person who would lead his staff in prayer as the imam. Those who worked with him said he was God-fearing and as clean as a whistle. The reason he was arrested by the MACC, said his colleagues, was because the Customs Department was clamping down hard on a certain smuggling syndicate and when they tried to buy him off he refused to take the bribe.

So he, too, died due to unknown reasons and under mysterious circumstances and the MACC suggests suicide as well. But a man of Ahmad Sarbani’s religious convictions would never even consider taking a bribe let alone take his own life.

Then we have the case of lawyer Rosli Dahlan and the ex-CCID Director, Ramli Yusoff. They, too, were fixed up because they tried to bring down the mafia. Anyway, I have already written about this enough times but if you need more details about the case you can read about it in the reports below, which will show what type of mother-fookers these MACC people are.

So this was why the MACC’s image suffered. It was because they have committed many misdeeds and transgressions, murder included. So now the MACC is trying to clean up that image by taking on the most powerful man in the country.

But what about the Teoh Beng Hock and Ahmad Sarbani Mohamed murders? Have these deaths ever been explained and has anyone been charged yet? And what about the injustice to Rosli Dahlan and Ramli Yusoff? Has the MACC admitted that these two people were wronged and were victims of a ‘character assassination’?

The MACC leaked information to the media regarding the Rosli Dahlan and Ramli Yusoff case. And it was false information, which is an offence under Section 21 (4) of the MACC Act. Hence the MACC committed a crime. And they are still doing it with regards to the 1MDB and the RM2.6 billion cases. Like in the Rosli Dahlan and Ramli Yusoff case, the MACC is using the media to conduct a trial in the court of public opinion.

But then people forget. They have a memory of only 100 days. So now the MACC’s rating has increased from less than 40% to almost 70%. And it is because of only one issue, the perception that they are going after the most powerful man in the country.

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Court orders NST, MACC to pay lawyer RM300,000 in defamation suit

(The Star, 18 October 2013) – A High Court here has ordered The New Straits Times (NST) and the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) to pay lawyer Rosli Dahlan RM300,000 in damages in a defamation suit against them.

Justice Siti Khadijah S. Hassan Badjenid ordered NST and MACC to pay RM150,000 damages each and RM35,000 costs each.

She said the court found that an article published on Oct 12, 2007, by the daily was false and defamatory and the law presumed malice on the part of NST.

“The court found that NST readers have been misinformed by the sting defamation in making the public believed that Rosli was not an ethical lawyer and had committed an offence by hiding a police officer’s assets worth RM27mil,” she said.

She said by linking the article to MACC sources was also an offence under Section 21 (4) of the MACC Act as the news was untrue and had confused the public.

In his suit filed in Oct 2009, Rosli had named The New Straits Times Press (Malaysia) Bhd, MACC, the Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA) and four other parties as defendants.

Rosli said NST published two articles on Oct 12 and Oct 13, 2007, and subsequently they were published on the MACC website and in its magazine.

The article on Oct 12 reported that ACA arrested a lawyer over undeclared assets worth RM27mil allegedly amassed by a senior police officer and the ACA was investigating the possibility that the assets were being held under Rosli’s name.

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Rosli v. MACC: Will Abu Kassim be a ‘no-show’?

(Free Malaysia Today, 8 June 2015) – The epic legal tussle between prominent lawyer Rosli Dahlan and the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Agency (MACC) returns to court today with the defendants comprising MACC, its officers and the Federal Government expected to open its defence.

The case revolves around allegations by Rosli of his wrongful arrest and detention at the hands of MACC, then known as the Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA), and a conspiracy at the highest echelons of government, involving Attorney General Abdul Gani Patail, former Inspector General of Police Musa Hassan and current MACC head Chief Commissioner Abu Kassim Mohamed to destroy his professional reputation by reason of his close association with ex-Commercial Crimes Investigations Department Director Ramli Yusoff.

Lawyers observing the case have told FMT that while Gani and Musa are defendants in another conspiracy for malicious prosecution suit, Abu Kassim is the prime defendant in this conspiracy suit but is conspicuously absent on the list of defence witnesses submitted by lead counsel for MACC, Cecil Abraham for this week’s continued trial.

The omission of Abu Kassim from the list is the most baffling, since he heads the list of 12 individuals who together with the Federal Government are named as defendants in the suit.

In fact, just as startling, they say, is the fact that Abu Kassim has not attended court even once since the trial commenced.

Part of Rosli’s case had included the testimony of former MACC advisor Robert Phang, who had told the court that Abu Kassim had admitted that there was no case against Rosli in the first place.

Despite this, Rosli was arrested and charged in the Kuala Lumpur Sessions Court under the Anti-Corruption Act, 1997 even before Ramli was charged. The charges were eventually dismissed by the court without Rosli’s defence being called.

FMT understands that no reasons have been given for Abu Kassim’s absence previously, but that with the defence witnesses about to take the stand, Abu Kassim is now said to be overseas.

To date, there has been no official word as to where he is, how long he will be away and whether he will make an appearance on his return.

Observers believe that the defence may be employing a ‘stonewall’ defence by seeking to shield Abu Kassim from having to testify in court.

They note that the defence to date has been pressing the argument that all the evidence of ‘animosity’ between the three and Ramli built up by witnesses called by Rosli is irrelevant to the present suit.

The same argument had been put forward by the defence without success in an attempt to get Justice Su Geok Yiam, who is presiding over the trial, to strike out substantial portions of Ramli’s testimony prior to him taking the stand.

It remains to be seen whether or not Justice Su will eventually accept that argument when the time comes for her to analyse the evidence and law when delivering her decision in the case.

For the time being, however, it appears that MACC has lined up two important personalities to give evidence, Azam Baki (the eight defendant) and Sok One a/l Esen (the tenth defendant).

According to Rosli’s evidence, Sok One had “barged into the office”, “created a loud commotion,” and shouted “tangkap dan jatuhkan kaki dia dan gari dia” (arrest him, drop his legs and handcuff him).

He was also alleged to have threatened to punch Rosli.

Azam, now MACC’s intelligence division director, was also present during Rosli’s arrest and, according to the evidence of Rosli’s witnesses, eventually succumbed to the protestations of Rosli’s office mates by ordering that the handcuffs be removed after Rosli’s wrists had begun to bleed.

Also scheduled to give evidence were other defendants in the action, namely officers Azmi bin Ismail, Moses Lawrence, Augustine S Manson, M Mohan a/l Mutaiyah.

Raja Petra Kamarudin RPK