TAKING JUSTICE SERIOUSLY : Tudung or not, MACC Should Stop Wasting Taxpayers’ Money

by Din Merican

On Saturday July 30, Anwar Ibrahim mesmerized the audience at the 15th Malaysian Law Conference with his closing speech – “ Taking Justice Seriously”. Anwar mentioned the persecution of Malaysia’s most celebrated blogger, Raja Petra Kamaruddin, more famously known as RPK. He compared RPK’s flight to England to that of Emile Zola who did the same almost a century earlier. Both men had reckoned that it would be foolish to submit to an utterly corrupt and unjust system.

To Anwar’s credit, he did not breathe a word about his own continuing trial in Sodomy II that was about to take place on Monday August 2. To Anwar’s credit, he spoke about all other persecutions except his own. To Anwar’s credit, he is standing his ground to seek his vindication in the courts of law in Malaysia. He is taking justice seriously.

The Tudung Affair: A Sub-Plot in Sodomy 2 Trial

So on August 2, the road to the Jalan Duta Court Complex became choked with traffic again. The main lobby of the court house was crowded again. Security was tight.The Police screened everyone from free access to the corridors of justice. And all that because Anwar Ibrahim was in court again. However , Anwar’s case did not proceed. It did not proceed because of the scandal involving DPP Farah Azlina Latif and Saiful Bukhari.

DPP Farah Azlina Latiff

Looking at DPP Farah who wears the tudung, one would expect she would have a certain aversion to a man who publicly claimed to have been sodomised. Well, obviously this woman DPP is not very discerning. On the other hand, Saiful, a strong young man in his late 20s, who says he was overpowered by a 60+ old man to the point of being sodomised , obviously could not restrain his own manly urge, such that even a tudung clad DPP of Farah Azlina’s appearance could tempt him. It is as if there is divine intervention to show the cracks in the prosecution’s case.

Dato Ramli Yusuff back in court

While all this drama was taking place, in another court room of the same Jalan Duta Court Complex, the trial of Dato’ Ramli Yusuff, former Director Commercial Crime Investigations Division, was quietly taking place. What? Another trial?

Dato’ Ramli Yusuff, former Director Commercial Crime Investigations Division

Hadn’t Dato’ Ramli already been acquitted? Didn’t Judge Supang Lian of Kota Kinabalu Sessions Court acquit him without even calling for his defence? Isn’t this the same Judge who found IGP Musa Hassan to be “an incredible witness whose evidence is not to be believed”? Didn’t Judge M. Gunalen of KL Sessions Court also acquit Dato’ Ramli without calling for his defence after holding that the Prosecution could not even prove a prima facie case? In other words, Dato’ Ramli was fixed! Didn’t the A-G appeal in Sabah and again lost in the High Court?

All this was revived again when Dato’ Ramli appeared before Judge SM Komathy Suppiah on that Monday . What the public did not know was that IGP Musa Hassan and his co-conspirator, the AG, Gani Patail, had fixed up another charge against Dato’ Ramli. When they realized that the joy ride charge and the small change charge could not stick, they cooked up another charge. This time it was for being a shareholder and director of a company called Kinsajaya Sdn Bhd in 2006 without having prior approval. This escaped a lot of attention because they made this a Summons case. Whether Summons or arrest case, it is still a criminal case. This shows the vindictiveness of IGP Musa Hassan and AG Gani Patail.

The only problem with this new charge is that Dato’ Ramli did have approval! Not only that, the paper trail clearly showed that the application for approval was submitted by Dato’ Ramli through the PDRM’s head of administration, Dato’ Rubiah, who had already confirmed this fact in the Sabah case earlier. Yet, AG Gani Patail was intent that Dato’ Ramli must still be charged for this additional offence, which is not even an offence. That is what distressed both the DPP Ahmad Bache and DPP Ahmed Sazle. That is what was written on their faces, when they were shown the application letters filed by Dato’ Ramli to KDN and to then IGP Tan Sri Bakri. The good DPP Ahmad Bache even said to Dato’ Ramli’s counsel that Dato’ Ramli should send in a representation to seek a withdrawal of this charge. But that begets the question, if the AG, if the Prosecution has no case, shouldn’t they be honourable enough and withdraw the charge?

Unfortunately, these good DPPs will claim that they are but foot soldiers. Their excuse would be that they are just doing their job- “hanya menjalankan tugas dan mengikut perintah ”. Unfortunately, I do not subscribe to that. Unfortunately, I do not buy the line that civil servants can hide behind the cloak of “mengikut perintah” to commit or perpetuate wrongs directed by their bosses. That was the fundamental message explained by Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah in the book The Shafee Yahya Story thus : “ I believe it should not be blind loyalty if the instructions are not right and not in accordance with government policy and general orders. In other words, a civil servant must be direct, be truthful and impartial and be brave enough to say “no” if asked to do things that are not right”. He must have integrity.

Clearly being man of letters and law, these DPPs can tell that what they have been directed to do by AG Gani is not right. It would be wrong and against the principles of “Am’r Maaruf Nahy Mungkar” and against the laws of this country to fix anyone. It would be especially wrong for them to proceed with the trial when they can see that this charge under the Penal Code would require mens rea or the “criminal intent”. For that matter, most if not all criminal cases would require a criminal intent.

The criminal intent is clearly missing here because Dato’ Ramli had applied for such approval. When Dato’ Ramli showed these DPPs his application letter, they reacted with surprise, and then claimed that they have never seen that letter. If they have not seen it, then what kind of investigation did the MACC conduct? Or was one ever conducted in the first place before Dato’ Ramli was charged? Already, in the other cases against Dato’ Ramli, all the independent prosecution witnesses have admitted that they were only interviewed after Dato’ Ramli was charged!

What is more baffling in this case is that the KDN approval letter to be a shareholder is there in Dato’ Ramli’s personal dossier kept with the Pentadbiran PDRM. But the approval letter of the then IGP Tan Sri Bakri is missing. It is common knowledge that since the time Musa Hassan became Deputy IGP to Tan Sri Bakri, he had started to dig up on Dato Ramli’s files. Could the missing letter of approval from Tan Sri Bakri have anything to do with Musa Hassan? Did Musa Hassan make it disappear? After all, Musa Hassan and AG Gani Patail have already been implicated in several allegations for fabrication of evidence.

Whatever may be the case, it would have been so easy to establish this fact. Interview Tan Sri Bakri and ask him. Apparently, the MACC did not want to do that because they knew that Tan Sri Bakri’s answer would totally destroy their case. They knew that Tan Sri Bakri had informed his old squad mates R.Mogana Krishnan and Arif Khamis that he had given the approval. Because of that, the MACC DPPs have not even listed Tan Sri Bakri as one of their 12 witnesses.

From what I have seen in court yesterday and during the Rosli Dahlan trial, these DPPs do not take justice seriously.They play with people’s lives and they behave in a cavalier manner. What infuriates me most is that there are so many abuses, so many crimes and so much corruption out there, and yet IGP Musa Hassan, AG Gani Patail and the MACC are indulging in frivolous prosecutions of the innocent. They are wasting public funds and taxpayers’ money in pursuing cases like Dato’ Ramli’s and Lawyer Rosli Dahlan’s.

Perhaps the time has come that we make the AG and the MACC accountable to pay costs if they lose cases against innocent men who have had to engage expensive lawyers to seek defend themselves. Perhaps, that will make them take justice seriously!