Hoisted by one's own petard

 

Before he was sentenced on a corruption charge in September 2015, former Selangor menteri besar Mohd Khir Toyo, in his mitigation, told the Federal Court of his contributions to the state.

Malaysiakini quoted him as saying that he had developed the state to international standard, which had been recognised by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), where in his eight years as MB he had pulled in annual investments of RM13.8 billion in 2008 alone, compared to RM6 billion in 2000.

This was what he told the court: “Saya telah berjaya membangunkan Selangor menjadi negeri maju dengan international standard. Di mana negeri maju itu telah disah dan dibuat kajian oleh IMF, International Management of Sweden (sic) recognised Selangor maju dan IMF telah keluarkan buku yang menjadi panduan untuk pelabur-pelabur.” 

(I have succeeded in developing Selangor into a successful state on par with international standards. It was confirmed and researched by the IMF, the International Management of Sweden [sic] recognised Selangor as developed and IMF released a book as a guide to investors.)

Having found him guilty, the Federal Court deferred the sentence. Having read what he had to say, citing documents when I first investigated the claim in 2005, I then wrote: “... the wheat has to be separated from the chaff. The truth has to be told in the public interest and in the interest of justice. These figures and the ‘recognition’ were picked from thin air and the archives can provide anecdotal and dependable data to back this.”

I quoted email exchanges with Suzanne Rosselet-McCauley, senior economist at the IMD World Competitiveness Center Swiss Institute, which spelt the truth:

“I must admit to being very surprised for two reasons: first, we do not cover the state of Selangor in the WCY (World Competitiveness Yearbook) rankings, only Malaysia, even though we do include other regional economies, such as Zhejiang, China; or Maharashtra, India; and our rankings are based on 60 economies, not 30.

“Second, with a Google search, I came across the announcement that you refer to and the article mentions ranking positions that do not correspond to any rankings that we have for Malaysia.”

One Shafee Abdullah

Why this long-winded peek into history? Before sentencing, Khir's counsel Muhammad Shafee Abdullah (above) addressed the court and referred to what I had written and another editorial in The Sun.

“These articles were calculated to appear before the decision, probably to prejudice and cause irreparable damage to proceedings,” he told the judges.

The five-member panel led by then chief judge of Malaya Zulkefli Ahmad Makinudin, however, dismissed the allegation, saying that they had not been influenced by any reports on Khir’s case.

“None of these reports, either here or other reports, influenced us at all,” said Zulkefli, stressing that the judges had decided purely on the evidence and the facts.

Outside the court after sentencing, the lawyer told the media he had been instructed to file contempt proceedings against this writer and The Sun. The issue died there.

Over the past few days, we have heard all kinds of utterances from Shafee over the trial of former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak.

Former premier Najib Abdul Razak

On Friday, Malaysiakini quoted him as saying among others there was a suppression of evidence and that the hybrid hearing had given the prosecution some advantages over his team, especially when presenting their case to the court.

After having failed to adduce fresh evidence at the Court of Appeal, he charged that there was more evidence that had been suppressed (from Najib’s defence team), which they were not informed of by either the MACC or the police.

In the case of Khir, Shafee had claimed that my comments would “prejudice and cause irreparable damage to proceedings.”

'Prejudicial statements'

I can take pride that my comments were based on facts supported by documents and were an attempt to correct some half-truths that were said in court.

I don’t want to attempt to guess the rationale or the motives of Shafee’s statements or claims but they too are being made when the matter is before the Federal Court.

But readers may also recall that it was the same Shafee who at the outset of the High Court case in 2018, sought to gag the media.

The application of a gag order, he argued, was aimed to stop anyone from making prejudicial statements that can impact the trial.

He said the gag order was to ensure no unfair comments are made about the merit of the case in order to get it published by the media.

The order was not granted. But now, isn’t he doing what he opposed in the first place? Isn’t he insinuating that the trial was not fair? Weren’t earlier statements by other parties complaining of “political interference” contemptuous too?

Although, on paper and technically, it is the People v Najib Abdul Razak, Joe Public does not have standing in taking the issue to the courts.

This has to be addressed by the public prosecutor, in this case, the attorney-general. Doesn’t he find it nauseating that the integrity of the judiciary is being questioned?

Why is he then keeping quiet? - Mkini

R NADESWARAN is a veteran journalist who writes on bread and butter issues. Comments: citizen.nades22@gmail.com.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.