Are we better than the UK?

The parents of government-sponsored student Ashraf Rossli must be naïve to believe the criminal system here is better than the UK.

COMMENT

Parents of Malaysian government-sponsored student Ashraf Rossli felt that British justice has cheated them when two thugs, jailed for robbing their son in London last summer, had their conviction quashed and sentence set aside by the top Appeals Court judge because the guilty verdict was based on evidence given by two anonymous witnesses.

They expressed outrage that neither the police nor the Crown Prosecution Service had informed them of the judgment.

The father was also quoted as saying: “What happened to my son would never have happened in Malaysia. In Malaysia, people are taught from an early age that they will be punished if they do something that is against the law. They would be afraid to behave like this. They would never dare do it.”

Firstly, in a criminal case where the defendants are accused of robbery, it must be proven beyond reasonable doubt that the defendants are the actual perpetrators committing the offence.

If there is evidence by an anonymous eyewitness who is not named or present in court to be examined during the trial, such evidence is considered hearsay and therefore inadmissible.

If the prosecution only has inadmissible evidence, then the case against the defendants must be thrown out.

The parents in this case, being emotionally attached to the victim who is their son and being lay people themselves, have misconceived their feelings while the appeals judge was right.

In other words: justice to the victim may not have been seen to be done, but the law was indeed correctly applied when the defendants were actually given the benefit of doubt.

As an example to further put emphasis on this principle of law: many of the past drug trafficking convictions in Malaysia were based on the evidence of anonymous informants and these are in fact wrong by modern civilised legal standards because there is always a probable possibility that the accused is conveniently framed up to be a scapegoat.

A naïve observation

Before the “genocide” on the Malaysian judiciary in 1988, there was a case where a bag of drugs was seized from a house full of people; however, only one occupant was charged with trafficking and he was convicted and sentenced to hang by the High Court.

On appeal to the Supreme Court (now renamed as the Federal Court), the three justices unanimously overturned the lower court’s decision because the leader of the raiding party asked the following question when he got hold of the bag: “Ini beg siapa punya?” literally meaning “Whose bag is this?”

The learned judges were of the opinion that such a question by the raid leader could only mean that he did not know who the bag belonged to and since none of the occupants claimed ownership of the bag, why charge only one person and not all the occupants?

What was learnt from the sharp observations of these magnificent past jurists is this: that there was an alleged crime, but no one knew who the culprit is – justice to hang the trafficker was seen undone, but the law was correctly applied when the accused was given the benefit of doubt.

Secondly, it is only psychologically normal for a person to want to forget a nasty experience and move on in life; no doubt, there will be some sadness and resentment but is it necessary to criticise the British police or CPS simply for not delivering the news?

Thirdly, I suspect this family does not live in Malaysia anymore; otherwise, how can the naïve parent not know that we have snatch theft, armed robbery, daylight robbery, night time robbery, ATM robbery, highway robbery, fighter jet engine robbery, military armoury robbery, police station drug haul evidence robbery, C4 bombing, election mandate robbery, police robbery, police station rape, police shooting teenager, and a colourful variety of other assortment of crimes as well?

And the most misguided thought of Ashraf’s father is this: all these criminals in Malaysia are not afraid to do it again and again because they can get away with it.

He has definitely got more than sympathy when he used Malaysia as a “shining” example to gain cheap publicity.

The writer is a member of Sabah’s fading travel industry; loves food and speed; speaks to all sides of the political divide; and blogs at http://legalandprudent.blogspot.com/ giving no quarters.