CONVICT Datuk Seri Najib Razak is now spending his days in his posh residence in Jalan Langgak Duta, Kuala Lumpur. But nobody knows what kind of lifestyle the disgraced former premier is enjoying while serving the remaining six years of his sentence under house arrest.
Home Minister Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail has declared his residence a prison which according to a government gazette, the declared area covers all buildings and a land area of 4,558.975 sq metres.
This prison is definitely not a replica of Kajang Prison which is much larger at 1.6 mil sq metres. However, a prison is a prison which means that it must have all the grim features associated with it.
By all accounts, its appearance is foreboding: tall concrete walls topped with razor wire or barbed wire, watchtowers and a network of security cameras.
Perhaps, high-tech security features such as drones are used to monitor the surroundings to repel any attempts at a breakout.
Although tight security cordon has been thrown around the ground of Najib’s residence, the Prisons Department should consider erecting a wall around the house which can be built in no time considering that the prisoner has six long years to complete his sentence.
There should also be watchtowers set up at the four corners of his house to ensure no “UMNO invaders” can enter the premises.
Forfeiting luxurious features
To ensure the prisoner is deprived of the luxury of a private life, a battery of CCTVs should be installed inside and outside the house to check very movement of Bossku.
The inside of his “mansion” must also assume the look of a real prison. Hence, his room must be altered to look like a barren cell, measuring maybe 6 by 12 feet, furnished with a concrete bed (no Dunlop pillows or posters), an open toilet and a small sink.
The door must also be made of heavy metal with tiny openings at the top and bottom: the former to check what he is doing (whether he is sleeping or weeping or meditating) and the latter for family members to shove in his meagre meals.
For bathing purposes, a small open-air space be created with just one overhead shower for the once-most powerful man to take his baths with no soaps provided.
But nobody really knows what the inside of his “new posh villa” looks like. To ensure that the former premier is experiencing as harsh a condition as the one he experienced at the Kajang Prison, a proposal by Kepong MP Lim Lip Eng is worth considering.
Lim suggested that the Home Ministry should organise a visit for members of the Dewan Rakyat special select committee on security to inspect what kind of security arrangement had been made for Najib’s residence.
Since the residence has been declared a prison, such a parliamentary inspection should be given the greenlight because the MPs are not mere ordinary visitors. They are all members of the special select committee charged with looking into security matters.
Besides, such a visit would ensure transparency in the sense that the public will get to know what a house arrest should look like.
But will the ministry take up the suggestion? Or will it turn down the proposal for fear it will expose a lenient treatment had been put in place?
Whatever type of security protocols had been implemented, the overriding concern is Bossku must never be made to feel that his punishment for the crime he had committed in the SRC International Sdn Bhd case is no longer of paramount importance.
A house arrest does not mean that it is just a place to unwind and relax. The country wants to see that the former UMNO president must pay for his crime in as harsh a manner as possible.
The Langgak Duta prison must be turned into a real prison where the incarcerated inmate must be made to bear the full force of the law. Let Bossku spend the next six years in “imprisoned air, imprisoned light, imprisoned damps”.
Phlip Rodrigues is a retired journalist.
The views expressed are solely of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT
- Focus Malaysia.
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