THE US DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE BELLS AND WHISTLES SHOW

The US Department of Justice is taking action based on complaints lodged by the ANC (Anti-Najib Campaign). I remember doing the same thing 16 years ago back in 2000 (that time the Free Anwar Campaign or FAC). I went to Washington and paid a US lobby firm to bring Anwar Ibrahim’s ‘political detention’ based on ‘fabricated charges’ and ‘false evidence of sodomy’ to the attention of the US government.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

A number of people have contacted me to ask whether I am going to respond to the latest excitement regarding the US Department of Justice press conference yesterday. Actually, my wife and I are currently in Poland and in a short while we will be traveling by road to Austria, a journey that will take almost the whole day.

Anyway, just to satisfy some of you and to avoid being accused of refusing to talk about the issue, I will post my views on the matter but maybe not in my normal 3-4 page cheong hei manner (because I need to leave soon for Austria).

First of all, I have seen such excitement before, which in the end fizzled out and died a silent death. Take the so-called ‘court case’ in France as one example. It was supposed to have a been an open trial involving Altantuya Shaariibbu’s murder.

I was so excited that I made a trip to Paris to attend the trial and was joined there by the Editor of Free Malaysia Today. What we found out instead is that we were misinformed by Suaram. It was not actually a trial in an open court but merely a closed investigation in the judge’s chambers. So that means it was not open to public or even a trial in the first place.

And we further found out that it was not about Altantuya’s murder but about whether any French nationals or entities were involved in corruption involving the sale of two submarines to Malaysia. And the investigation was based on Suaram’s complaint who claimed they had locus standi to lodge the complaint, and which later proved false.

That was a huge anti-climax and after so many years there is still no word about this so-called trial regarding a murder.

This latest US episode sounds like it is similar to what we have been led to believe about a trial in France. And after viewing the video of yesterday’s press conference, it appears like the US Department of Justice was talking about suspicions rather than facts that have been proven. In response to the questions they said investigations are still ongoing and some of the facts cannot be confirmed yet.

Is this US excitement going to end up like that French excitement of a few years ago? Even the complainant in that French episode has closed down and no longer exists. After all these years no one is telling us anything about that so-called trial in a French court that did not exist.

So before I get all excited and rush to Washington, like I did to Paris a few years ago, let us see where all this is going.

The US Department of Justice is taking action based on complaints lodged by the ANC (Anti-Najib Campaign). I remember doing the same thing 16 years ago back in 2000 (that time the Free Anwar Campaign or FAC). I went to Washington and paid a US lobby firm to bring Anwar Ibrahim’s ‘political detention’ based on ‘fabricated charges’ and ‘false evidence of sodomy’ to the attention of the US government.

The way it is done in the US, which I have done myself in the past, is that you pay a US firm a large sum of money and they will work the corridors of power to get your case heard. At the end nothing much may happen (like in the Anwar case I brought to them in 2000) but you can make sure that they make a lot of noise (which was what we did in 2000).

I really do not know who Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak has working for him in the US (Anwar had me in 2000). But whoever it is Najib should sack him or her immediately and appoint someone else who knows his or her job. If Najib appointed me and gave me a budget of a few hundred million I would know what to do. I did this before for Anwar and it did not even come to RM1 million.

Of course, Malaysians who do not know how things work in the US would go all googoo-gaga and would get excited. But those of us who know how it works would rather stay cool and drive from Poland to Austria with their wife, like what I am going to do in an hour from now.

Anyway, we talk more once I arrive in Austria.