MACC: Stop Persecuting the Innocent and We will Work with You

by Din Merican

Last week was the anniversary of Teoh Beng Hock’s death. Teoh Beng Hock died while in the custody of the MACC. Teoh Beng Hock was found dead flung outside the office of the MACC at Plaza Masalam. He died in the process of an investigation although he was not a suspect. Teoh Beng Hock died although he was just a witness in an investigation over an allegation of abuse of a wakil rakyat’s allocation of RM 2,400. Teoh Beng Hock died over a meagre RM 2,400. That is the value of life to the MACC!

Beng Hock’s Spirit haunts MACC

Teoh’s family is still in mourning over his death. Teoh’s child is born into this world without knowing his father. Teoh’s spirit must be restless that it cannot leave Plaza Masalam. That was the suspicion and superstition why the Selangor MACC moved out of Plaza Masalam. MACC must think that by moving out of a place or building or changing its name and slogan will stop the hauntings. MACC must realize that until Teoh’s killer is found and punished, the haunting will not stop. Having a Coroner’s Inquest to whitewash Teoh’s death will not erase the eternal stain that a witness had died in the hands of the MACC.

The Inquest is getting nowhere

Unfortunately, the Inquest is now seen as involving the Courts to be complicit in the whitewashing of Teoh’s death. The Judiciary ended up being implicated. The Inquest ended up losing credibility when the expert witness, the forensic expert from Thailand, Dr Pornthip Rojanasunand was vilified by the Minister of Home Affairs and the Minister in charge of Parliament. That is what happens when our vital institutions do not act as a check and balance to the excesses and abuses of the executive arm and its instruments. The Courts must do more to restore confidence in its independence and dignity.

Tun Salleh Abas, Sodomy 1 and Sodomy 2

There are many more things that have happened that make the public question the independence of the judiciary. Already the Tun Salleh Abbas(left) saga has battered the image of the judiciary. Then strange court rulings were made in Anwar Ibrahim’s prosecution in Sodomy I and now Sodomy II. The latest Court of Appeal’s decision which reversed the High Court’s ruling on the interviewing of witnesses beyond office hours was a direct spillover of Teoh’s case. That decision did not make sense despite being delivered by our own law lords of the superior courts. It does not take a genius to know when a decision is unfair or idiotic. That was how the public perceived many of the the superior courts’ decisions in over turning more logical and reasonable decisions of courts lower to it. Common sense is not the exclusive property of judges of the superior courts. In the end, the Judiciary is looked upon with scorn and ridicule.

Sessions Court Judge Abu Bakar Katar to continue with the Lawyer Dahlan Case

Last week also, I received a facebook message from a very senior DPP who had just left the Legal Service and is now in private practice. He wanted to tell me that the Chief Registrar of the Federal Court had directed that Sessions Court Judge Abu Bakar Katar shall continue to hear Rosli Dahlan’s case to its conclusion. He also said to me that civil activists should not undermine independent public institutions like the courts.

While this was certainly good news to Rosli and to Malaysians, the message that the former senior DPP wanted to convey to me was clear enough – that we should trust the Courts and our Judges. That all the suspicion circulated about our Courts and our Judges as being just another instrument of a repressive regime should stop. That attacks on the independence of our judiciary should stop. That our Chief Justice Tun Zaki Tun Azmi shoud be given a chance to rebuild the tattered reputation of our judiciary.

After all that I have said above, do you blame the Malaysian public for looking at the courts with grave suspicion? I felt that this former senior DPP was hitting back at me for the previous articles that I wrote criticising the courts for being complicit in changing the goal posts to favour the MACC in the Trial of Rosli Dahlan.

I reported almost verbatim about the lies by MACC DPP Kevin Morais. Just when the Investigating Officer Saiful Ezral was being grilled and began to contradict himself and Kevin Morais, DPP Dzulqarnain behaved in a most dsepicable way to disrupt the trial time and again and again. And the final straw was when they attempted to change Judge Abu Bakar Katar. Do you blame me in reporting all these injustice?

However, as a civil activist, I accept that I must be impartial. I must commend the good that is being done. For that reason, let me now produce the letter by the Chief Registrar Tuan Hashim Bin Hamzah: Acrobat Document

Hope for Justice

Yes, I must admit that this direction from the Chief Registrar lifts some hope that the Courts can be the last bastion of justice. That the Courts will not allow the goal posts to be seen as being moved in the middle of a game just to favour the MACC. But the problem is, this is not game. This is about someone’s dignity, honour and livelihood and about someone’s life. The MACC must not be allowed to do as it pleases regardless of the consequences.

This is all the more pertinent when I read Bernama’s report that the MACC Chief, Datuk Abu Kassim had said that the public must fight corruption, not fight with MACC. It becomes all the more pertinent when the Parliamentary Special Committee on Corruption (SCC) is requesting that the MACC must have prosecutorial powers, more manpower and a sufficient budget so it could be more effective.

It is all the more pertinent when the MACC is seeking an additional budget allocation of RM324,114,492.00 in 2010. It all the more pertinent when presently the MACC is spending RM156,845,500.00 of our tax payers money to prosecute the innocent like Lawyer Rosli Dahlan whereas they should be going after the real crooks in our society.

As a matter of contrast to Rosli’s case, on July 14, 2010, it was reported that Judge Abu Bakar Katar acquitted an ACA officer, Rahiman Selamat 52, for receiving a Rolex Oyster Perpetual watch in a graft case involving BN Selangor executive councillor Datuk Saidin Thamby in 1998. The case ended only now in 2010 i.e. after 11 years!

Is Lawyer Rosli Dahlan wrong to defend his client?

There were appeals and retrials and yet after all that, the prosecution still failed to prove a prima facie case.
Did Rosli receive any corruption? Did he do anything wrong? No! All Rosli did was to defend his client Dato’ Ramli Yusuff who was being fixed by the IGP and A-G Gani Patail. The evidence is there staring at us when Kevin Morais and all the MACC witnesses now admitted that Rosli was just a witness. And yet they brutalised and humiliated him. Fortunately, and Thank Almighty Allah, Rosli did not die like Teoh Beng Hock.

Abu Kassim, Do the Honourable Thing: Withdraw the Case Against Rosli Dahlan and Apologise

Is it not time then that the MACC withdraw the charge against him and apologise for all the wrongs they did to him? Or is it the MACC’s birdbrained strategy to drag this case for 11 years more? To Abu Kassim, I say that you are wasting public money in persisting to prosecute an innocent man. To Abu Kassim I say, do not ask for more money and more power unless you and the MACC can regain public trust. The trial and tribulations of Rosli Dahlan is hurting more the image of MACC than it is Rosli’s image.

The Courts may yet be the last bastion of Justice

A new hope has been lifted that the courts may yet be the last bastion of justice. We must continue to have faith that the Courts would do the right thing just as what Chief Registrar Hashim Hamzah had done in directing Judge Abu Bakar Katar to continue with Rosli Dahlan’s Trial. We must believe that Chief Justice Tun Zaki Tun Azmi will set the right direction for the judiciary. We must give our Chief Justice a chance to show the impartiality of the courts since he has been honoured by Lincoln’s Inn by publishing him as an Honorary Bencher.

To the MACC Chief I say, have you paused to ask why the public seems to be fighting the MACC? Stop asking for more money and more power until you can show the MACC can be trusted to do the right thing. Stop persecuting the innocent, like Lawyer Rosli Dahlan and others, if you want the public to be with you in the fight against corruption!