Does the Home minister suffer from a sense of denial? What is it that prohibits him from realising the seriousness of Kausikan’s comments that “Najib has his neck on the line in connection with a high-profile murder case.”
Malaysia’s ties with Singapore are frosty after the Wikileaks disclosures, but Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein can only expect a cold response from the Malaysian public.
Three days after the Wikileaks revelations, Hishamuddin denied that the Malaysian police had leaked information on Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim.
Hishammuddin said that “…. it is irresponsible for any party to attempt to link the police or the Home Ministry as the source of the information”.
He maintained: “I would like to stress that all information and secrets pertaining to police investigations is well protected and is secured as it involves the image and credibility of the force”.
Is he able to give us an absolute guarantee that the source is not the police? Can information not be fabricated? Is information pertaining to police investigation as well protected as he claims?
In 2007, 8-year-old Nurin Jazlin disappeared in August after going out to a night market alone near her home in Wangsa Maju. A month later, her naked body was stuffed into a sports bag and left near a shop in Petaling Utama.
Soon after, Nurin's post-mortem photographs, started to appear on the net and her father, Jazimin Abdul Jalil, sued the police and the Government for the circulation of his daughter’s photos.
Jazimin said that the defendants had admitted their liability. A policeman, L/Kpl Amran, had taken home a draft containing the photographs and showed them to his neighbour whose relatives later captured them using a cellphone camera without his knowledge.
Jazimin successfully reached an out-of-court-settlement.
This may be one incident that we know of, but can Hishamuddin safely claim that all information and secrets pertaining to police investigations are well protected and secure?
When Hishamuddin was the leader of the UMNO Youth wing in 2004, Anwar had just been freed from prison, after Malaysia's highest court overturned his conviction for sodomy.
At that time, Hishamuddin, said that Anwar had menaced Malaysia’s stability and that the party should never take him back.
He said, “Let us not forget that this traitor once destroyed our unity, smeared the country's image and destroyed the economy with violent street protests.”
And yet, last week, he must have heard the Wikileaks revelations from a Singaporean official who said, “Najib has his neck on the line in connection with a high-profile murder case.”
Is Hishamuddin blind to Kausikan’s allegations about Najib and the high-profile murder? Don’t these links about a Prime minister and murder also ‘smear the country’s image’?
What about the other comments by the Singaporeans who claimed Malaysia was “dangerous”, that it was suffering from “racial conflict” and led by “incompetent politicians”? Haven’t these negative portrayals potential to “destroy the economy” and discourage investors?
We do not wish for a Home minister who acts like he is out of touch with reality. But this is the same Home minister who belittled women and said that they exaggerate the levels of street crimes.
He had allegedly said, “Most victims are women. What do women do? They go to the hairdressers... they chit-chat and suddenly it is everywhere and cause people to fear.”
Hishamuddin is privileged to live in a house which is probably in a gated community if not protected by an army of security personnel. He has no experience of the real world where crime is a constant threat.
Does the Home minister suffer from a sense of denial? What is it that prohibits him from realising the seriousness of Kausikan’s comments that “Najib has his neck on the line in connection with a high-profile murder case.”
He once famously said that time is needed to create the necessary police presence to address crime levels.
He said, “I tell the police not to get demoralised as the more people attack them, the more allocation we get”.
Maybe he should reflect that the Malaysian public is demoralised and disappointed when after the Wikileaks revelations, Hishamuddin chooses to attack only Anwar for sodomy, but he decides to avoid Najib and his alleged links to murder.
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