Apart from star witness Dr Pornthip Rojanasunand, all eyes in the Teoh Beng Hock inquest will also be on Malaysia’s controversial Attorney-General Gani Patail, who has been flayed for withholding a so-called ‘suicide’ note for 10 months and trying to tender it as new evidence at the 11th hour to ambush Pornthip's testimony.
“Dr Pornthip is pure electricity and everyone will be watching her. But there is another very fundamental issue in this case and that is the deliberate tampering of evidence by our top judicial officers,” Batu Member of Parliament Tian Chua toldMalaysia Chronicle.
“The AG must not be allowed to escape responsibility and should be sacked or Malaysian courts will never be credible again. Even if the Coroner rejects the note as new evidence, Gani is still accountable for hiding it. It shows he is trying to manipulate the situation to his advantage. Frankly, the credibility of his chambers has sunk so low, there are accusations all around town it had a hand in the ‘manufacturing’ of the note.
Gani is not expected to make an appearance at the inquest. However, lawyers for Teoh's family will surely push for his admonition by the court. Teoh was a 30-year old political officer employed by the Pakatan Rakyat Selangor government who died in suspicious circumstances after overnight interrogation by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission.
Hand-in-glove with top politicians
His inquest has attracted widespread media attention not least because it offers a glimpse of the murky and often corrupt ways in which Malaysian agencies often work hand-in-glove with Prime Minister Najib Razak’s Umno party in order to trigger a desired political outcome.
The 55-year Gani must surely rank as among the most notorious of Malaysia's top civil servants. Together, he and Inspector-General of Police Musa Hassan have ridden to the pinnacle of their respective professions thanks to the parts they played in getting Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim jailed for a total of 15 years on sodomy and corruption charges in 1998.
It now looks as though Gani has been prevailed on to do ‘national service’ yet again by the Umno elite and this time it may be to cover up for the MACC. The graft-buster has been accused of torturing Beng Hock and causing his death while trying to extract false confessions to incriminate his boss Ean Yong and other top Selangor DAP leaders. Speculation has been rife the MACC was trying to nail them on corruption charges to pave the way for Umno to regain control of the state government it lost to the Pakatan in the 2008 elections.
Scandal after scandal
Meanwhile, the embattled Gani has also been struck by personal scandal. Top blogger Raja Petra Kamaruddin has accused him of having an affair with a member of his staff, Azailiza Mohd Ahad, the Head of the International Affairs Division of the Attorney General’s Chambers.
“Yes, everyone knows about this affair. It is no secret. The AG and Azailiza make frequent trips overseas together and, to save the taxpayers’ some money, they share a hotel room rather than book separate rooms,” Raja Petra wrote in his Malaysia Today blog.
The news, while shocking, has not scandalized the nation because it comes hot on the heels of another sex scandal also involving Malaysia’s AG chambers – this time between DPP Farah Azlina Latiff and Saiful Bukhari Azlan, the complainant in the sodomy trial against Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim.
It is widely believed that Farah had been tasked to coach Saiful in Prime Minister Najib Razak’s bid to put his political arch rival behind bars. Such are the shenanigans in Malaysia’s imploding legal and enforcement system.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.