PKR's Thangam charged over Dataran breach

Rasah PKR division deputy chief R Thangam became the first person to be charged in connection with the Bersih 3.0 rally. 

Thangam faces a charge under Section 143 of the Penal Code for participating in an unlawful assembly, which was read together with an alternative charge of breaching a court order under Section 188 of the Penal Code.

He responded by pleading not guilty and claimed trial to both charges, despite only having to choose one.

He was released on a RM2,000 bail.

His lawyer Latheefa Koya lamented that the charge was read out very late in the afternoon, which nearly became a problem for Thangam to arrange bail.

She also complained that the Attorney-General's Chambers (AGC) appeared to be attempting to make a spectacle of the case by issuing a statement even before the charge was read out. 

"I'm surprised the press knows about the charges before the lawyers did," she said.

"We are wondering what their priority is. Are they trying to make an example out of Thangam?"

Did AG jump the gun?

Thangam is widely believed to be the first man to breach the barrier, which was erected to enforce a court order barring anybody from entering Dataran Merdeka that day.

In a press release earlier today, the AGC said there was sufficient evidence to charge "a man" in connection to the Bersih 3.0 rally.

“Available evidence shows that he had defied an order of the magistrate given under Section 98 of the Criminal Procedure Code, which was issued on April 26,” reads the statement.

The magistrate’s court order barred the organisers of the assembly and members of the public from convening at Dataran Merdeka from midnight last Friday until May 1.

Thangam was arrested at his Seremban residence by a large group of police personnel in the wee hours of May 1 and taken to the Jinjang police station, north of Kuala Lumpur.