Tomorrow one of the more intriguing confrontations in recent judicial history is set for staging before judge Asmabi Mohamad in the Kuala Lumpur High Court.
Former inspector-general of police Musa Hassan (left) is the plaintiff in a defamatory case he filed against Anwar Ibrahim in mid-2008 after the opposition leader had made several allegations against Musa and attorney-general Abdul Gani Patail in a police report Anwar lodged on July 1 that year.
Defamation is a difficult area of jurisprudence to parse. About the only plaintiffs to win defamation cases with regularity in recent decades was the government of Lee Kuan Yew.
Respectable opinion attributed Singapore government's high rate of success in defamatory cases to a compliant judiciary.
If defamation is invoked concerning allegations that savour of the truth, the gold standard in cautionary wisdom would be the one offered by the Irish playwright Oscar Wilde after he sued the Marquis of Queensbury upon the latter calling him a sodomite.
Wilde had been accused by the Marquis who was angry at the writer's relationship with his son, Alfred Douglas.
Under cross-examination by the marquis' lawyer, Edward Carson, then the English Bar's leading exponent of the art, Wilde was exposed as the homosexual he was. He lost the suit.
The marquis was vindicated and Wilde, ever the aphorist even in defeat, coined "Never sue when the allegations are true," which now stands as the gold standard in cautionary wisdom where defamation is concerned.
Whether Anwar's allegations in a police report he lodged in 2008 concerning the deportment of Musa and Gani (right) in respect of investigations leading to the brace of trials Anwar faced in 1998-99 are true will come up for trial tomorrow before justice Asmabi.
The allegations were that Musa, then a senior investigator with the police, and Gani, then a senior prosecutor in the AG's Chambers, had fabricated evidence in the trials in 1998-99 against Anwar for corruption and abuse of power, and for sodomy.
Anwar's allegations also concerned evidence relating to the 1999 inquiry by a royal commission into the ‘black eye' incident suffered by Anwar while under police detention following his arrest on Sept 20, 1998.
Reacting to Anwar's allegations lodged in the police report of 2008, Musa issued through his lawyers letters of demand to Anwar to retract and apologise.
When Anwar refused, Musa filed for defamation. Gani however ignored the allegations, choosing not to sue.
Top cop speaks out
The nub of Anwar's allegations concerned the ‘black eye' incident and the evidence that formed the basis of corruption, abuse of power and sodomy charges that were preferred against him in his trials in 1998-99.
Musa was the senior investigating officer in the initial trial of Anwar for corruption and abuse of power and the later trial for sodomy.
By the time Anwar filed the policed report in July 2008, Musa had risen to become IGP, and Gani was promoted to AG.
According to Anwar's police report, Musa and Gani had conspired to fabricate evidence that the ‘black eye' Anwar suffered while in detention was self-inflicted.
The whole episode of the ‘black eye' and the corruption and abuse of power and sodomy trials of 1998-99 are enmeshed in a miasma of contention, strands of which are gradually being brought to light by the retrospections of Mat Zain Ibrahim, a now retired police officer who in late 1998 was tasked with the role of investigating the ‘black eye' incident.
In police reports and affidavits he has filed in the last few years, Mat Zain claims that Musa and Gani had conspired to fabricate evidence in the ‘black eye' incident.
In the trial beginning tomorrow, Musa will have his chance of refuting Mat Zain's claims which are certain to be cited by Anwar's lawyers as grounds for the dismissal of Musa's defamation suit.
All efforts by Anwar's counsel, the late Christopher Fernando, in the 1998-99 trial for corruption and abuse of power to show that Musa, with Gani, had engaged in a conspiracy to fabricate evidence against Anwar ran into a hail of "not relevant" objections by the prosecutor that were sustained by the late justice Augustine Paul who presided at the trial.
In fact, several rulings on evidentiary relevance in the course of the trial by Paul, reputedly an expert on evidence, saw the term ‘not relevant' pass into comic vogue at the trial and in its aftermath.
Whether Musa will find a comparably emollient judge in Asmabi that he had in Paul in the trials of more than a decade ago is a question that will tantalise observers at tomorrow's proceedings.
Former inspector-general of police Musa Hassan (left) is the plaintiff in a defamatory case he filed against Anwar Ibrahim in mid-2008 after the opposition leader had made several allegations against Musa and attorney-general Abdul Gani Patail in a police report Anwar lodged on July 1 that year. Defamation is a difficult area of jurisprudence to parse. About the only plaintiffs to win defamation cases with regularity in recent decades was the government of Lee Kuan Yew.
Respectable opinion attributed Singapore government's high rate of success in defamatory cases to a compliant judiciary.
If defamation is invoked concerning allegations that savour of the truth, the gold standard in cautionary wisdom would be the one offered by the Irish playwright Oscar Wilde after he sued the Marquis of Queensbury upon the latter calling him a sodomite.
Wilde had been accused by the Marquis who was angry at the writer's relationship with his son, Alfred Douglas.
Under cross-examination by the marquis' lawyer, Edward Carson, then the English Bar's leading exponent of the art, Wilde was exposed as the homosexual he was. He lost the suit.
The marquis was vindicated and Wilde, ever the aphorist even in defeat, coined "Never sue when the allegations are true," which now stands as the gold standard in cautionary wisdom where defamation is concerned.
Whether Anwar's allegations in a police report he lodged in 2008 concerning the deportment of Musa and Gani (right) in respect of investigations leading to the brace of trials Anwar faced in 1998-99 are true will come up for trial tomorrow before justice Asmabi.The allegations were that Musa, then a senior investigator with the police, and Gani, then a senior prosecutor in the AG's Chambers, had fabricated evidence in the trials in 1998-99 against Anwar for corruption and abuse of power, and for sodomy.
Anwar's allegations also concerned evidence relating to the 1999 inquiry by a royal commission into the ‘black eye' incident suffered by Anwar while under police detention following his arrest on Sept 20, 1998.
Reacting to Anwar's allegations lodged in the police report of 2008, Musa issued through his lawyers letters of demand to Anwar to retract and apologise.
When Anwar refused, Musa filed for defamation. Gani however ignored the allegations, choosing not to sue.
Top cop speaks out
The nub of Anwar's allegations concerned the ‘black eye' incident and the evidence that formed the basis of corruption, abuse of power and sodomy charges that were preferred against him in his trials in 1998-99.
Musa was the senior investigating officer in the initial trial of Anwar for corruption and abuse of power and the later trial for sodomy.
By the time Anwar filed the policed report in July 2008, Musa had risen to become IGP, and Gani was promoted to AG.
According to Anwar's police report, Musa and Gani had conspired to fabricate evidence that the ‘black eye' Anwar suffered while in detention was self-inflicted.
The whole episode of the ‘black eye' and the corruption and abuse of power and sodomy trials of 1998-99 are enmeshed in a miasma of contention, strands of which are gradually being brought to light by the retrospections of Mat Zain Ibrahim, a now retired police officer who in late 1998 was tasked with the role of investigating the ‘black eye' incident.In police reports and affidavits he has filed in the last few years, Mat Zain claims that Musa and Gani had conspired to fabricate evidence in the ‘black eye' incident.
In the trial beginning tomorrow, Musa will have his chance of refuting Mat Zain's claims which are certain to be cited by Anwar's lawyers as grounds for the dismissal of Musa's defamation suit.
All efforts by Anwar's counsel, the late Christopher Fernando, in the 1998-99 trial for corruption and abuse of power to show that Musa, with Gani, had engaged in a conspiracy to fabricate evidence against Anwar ran into a hail of "not relevant" objections by the prosecutor that were sustained by the late justice Augustine Paul who presided at the trial.
In fact, several rulings on evidentiary relevance in the course of the trial by Paul, reputedly an expert on evidence, saw the term ‘not relevant' pass into comic vogue at the trial and in its aftermath.
Whether Musa will find a comparably emollient judge in Asmabi that he had in Paul in the trials of more than a decade ago is a question that will tantalise observers at tomorrow's proceedings.
TERENCE NETTO has been a journalist for close on four decades. He likes the occupation because it puts him in contact with the eminent without being under the necessity to admire them. It is the ideal occupation for a temperament that finds power fascinating and its exercise abhorrent.
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