Breaking news! Another victory for Rosli Dahlan: Court of Appeal stays AG's bid to expunge

by Din Merican

The tenacity of Lawyer Rosli Dahlan in pursuing his persecutors whom he called the “rogues in government” has to be  acknowledged. On January 3, all the mainstream media gleefully reported that the Attorney-General’s Chambers (AG-C) had succeeded to expunge six parts of Rosli’s Witness Statement. This is to be expected. The mainstream media gives wide coverage whenever the AG-C scores a victory against Rosli but would be almost silent when they trashed by Rosli.

Only last week, we saw The Star newspaper having to apologise and humbled by Rosli. Yet, The Star made no mention of it until they had to publish the Public Apology that the court ordered against them. That is the state of disinformation, misinformation and lies in our country perpetrated by the mainstream media. They are no longer newspapers which report news but are just instruments of  official propaganda.

On November 28, 2012, the AG-C had asked the Court to prevent Rosli from testifying inopen court and also to expunge certain parts of his witness statement relating to the Copgate Affair and other matters. On January 3, Malaysiakini reported that Justice Hue Siew Kheng had ruled in favour of the AG-C that the allegations made in Rosli’s statement were “riddled with hearsay” and were not relevant.

The parts that the AG-C wanted expunged described how A-G Gani Patail, former IGP Musa Hassan and the MACC had conspired to fix Rosli. It narrated IGP Musa Hassan’s connection with the underworld Along loan shark syndicate; why A-G Gani Patail was upset with Rosli for foiling his plans not to charge MAS’s former Chairman Tan Sri Tajudin Ramli for defrauding the national airlines; also of the MACC’s attempt to extort Rosli to drop his RM50miliion law suit against them.

In 2011, RPK’s Malaysia Today revealed that A-G Gani Patail had a “special relationship” with Tajuddin’s proxy, Shahidan Shafie, a former Police Officer who was charged for corruption in the 1990s.  Tabung Haji’s documents showed that A-G Gani Patail and family had enjoyed the Zamrud Hajj package that costs more than RM 260,000/- bringing into question if the trip was paid by Shahidan since they all shared rooms like one big happy family. Of course, the MACC cleared A-G Gani Patail of any wrongdoing.

Expunging these parts of Rosli’s witness statements would have meant that none of these would be revealed in court. It means that Rosli would have to go to trial without these material evidence being allowed to be tendered in Court.That’s why the AG-C was intent on blotting out these evidence. But despite that setback, Rosli persevered and soldiered on alone.

However, the irony in the AG-C’s application was that they had reproduced the whole expunged questions and answers. Similarly, all the expunged parts have also been reproduced in the written judgment of Justice Hue. This is a comedy of errors! While on one part, they wanted to hide these stories from the public, on the other hand, they have reproduced all these in a public document!  Where is the logic?

So, Rosli appealed to the Court of Appeal because these evidence are necessary to tell exactly how he was fixed by the Unholy Trinity of the A-G Gani Patail, former IGP Musa Hassan and the MACC. To expunge them would be like hiding these things under the carpet. That is grossly unfair to Rosli’s case.

This afternoon, the Court of Appeal Judges Dato Ramly Ali, Dato K. Anantham, Dato David Wong Dak Wah agreed with Rosli to stay the High Court’s expungement order and also  the trial which was originally scheduled today and on January 30 and 31. Kudos to Rosli’s fighting spirit!

As G-E 13 draws near, we see in Rosli Dahlan  a man who is determined in his own way to demand accountability from those who had abused him and the justice system. We see a man determined to use the court process to establish the Rule of Law.

We see more of such instances of ordinary people in the streets standing up to point out the wrongs being perpetrated by those in power. We saw that in the Listen Listen Listen video of  KS Bawani, a student of Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) standing up to the bullying tactics of Sharifah Zohra Jabeen Syed Shah Miskin, the so called President of NGO Suara Wanita 1Malaysia (SW1M).

We saw how silly Sharifah Zohra looked with her arguments that Malaysians shouldn’t complain because even animals like kambing, kucing and ikan Jaws have problems too. Now we know that SW1M is an NGO that fights for the rights of fishes swimming in the seas like the ikan jaws.

Malaysians are now more aware. Malaysians will rise to fight against injustices. Rosli and Bawani represent that new spirit amongst Malaysians. So, Prime Minister Najib should take heed of all these and correct them before he dissolves Parliament for G-E 13. Ignore the people’s wishes and BN may lose Putrajaya!