Former senator Mohd Ezam Mohd Nor has described PKR secretary-general Rafizi Ramli’s detention under the Official Secrets Act (OSA) as a "step backwards".
“Arresting Rafizi or anyone under the OSA is a wrong action to be taken and a step backwards,” he said in a Facebook post today.
Ezam, who was detained under the same Act in 2002, cited Justice KN Segara’s decision to release him in 2003.
“(In his decision), he found that the arrest was wrongful. There were many violations against the right to expose corruption in the case.
“An arrest under the OSA must only be made on the basis of national security and nothing else,” stressed Ezam.
Rafizi was detained yesterday under Section 8 of the OSA after revealing classified documents regarding the Lembaga Tabung Angkatan Tentera (LTAT).
He was held overnight at the Jinjang police detention centre and will be brought to the Putrajaya Magistrate’s Court later today to be remanded.
Ezam, in 2010, had claimed that he was the only Malaysian who had gone to jail over the OSA, in defence of his appointment as senator, then.
He was sentenced to two years’ jail under the OSA for leaking documents in relation to a graft probe on former Malacca chief minister Abdul Rahim Thamby Chik and former international trade and industry minister Rafidah Aziz.
Ezam, who was at the time detained without trial under the now-defunct Internal Security Act (ISA), was immediately sent to the Kajang Prison to serve his sentence.
A former PKR Youth chief, he quit the party in 2007, citing a lack of confidence in his former party boss, Anwar Ibrahim, and rejoined Umno in 2008.
After his tenure as senator ended in 2014, he currently serves as the chairperson of the Hisbah Centre for Reform. -Mkini
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