Friday, 05 February 2010 Super Admin
However, considering Nasir Safar’s ‘special status’, the AG also can’t decide on the matter. The AG will have to ‘seek guidance’ from the Prime Minister as to whether to charge Nasir Safar or not.
THE CORRIDORS OF POWER
Raja Petra Kamarudin
45 police reports have been made against Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak’s former special officer, Nasir Safar. So the police have no choice but to ‘record his statement’. That is the SOP of the Malaysian police force. If a police report is made against you then they must record your statement.
I remember, last year, IGP Musa Hassan said that they are not able to take any action based on rumours and Internet postings. A police report must first be made before the police can take action. And the action to take would be to record the statement of the one the police report has been made against. Then they will investigate the matter and decide if a crime has been committed.
Allow me to digress a bit here. In my own criminal cases, it was the police who made a police report against me. In other words, no police report was made against me. And since they can’t take action against me unless a police report is first lodged, the police themselves made a police report against me.
So the police do not need anyone to make a police report before they take action against you. If they really want to take action but no police report has been made, the police themselves can make that police report, as what happened to me.
Okay, now back to the issue at hand. If the police -- after the statement has been recorded and an investigation has been completed -- is of the view that a crime has been committed, they still can’t take action yet. Instead, they must refer the matter to the Attorney-General, who will then decide if there is any case to prosecute.
Assuming the AG feels the evidence is not strong enough or they do not quite have a case, then the file will be stamped NFA (No Further Action) and the matter will be closed.
That is how the Malaysian system works.
If I want to write about this matter in greater detail then this article would certainly run into 100 pages. Many of you will for sure not read any piece that is 100 pages long. As it is, I am already receiving complaints from my dear friend Chris that my four- to five-page articles are too cheong hei. Imagine what she will say about a 100-page article.
So, as not to annoy Chris, I will try to keep this piece within five pages or so. After all, this is not a thesis for my law degree. In case you are not already aware, I am practicing law without a law degree just like I write about Islam without first obtaining a degree from the International Islamic University (UIA).
And so that I can keep this article within the required length, I would like to refer to just ONE case. This one case should be sufficient to demonstrate the point I am trying to get across.
In 1999, the Parti Keadilan Nasional Youth Leader, Ezam Mohd Nor, called a press conference to reveal the Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA and now called MACC) investigation papers against Trade and Industry Minister Rafidah Aziz. The ACA investigation revealed that Rafidah had committed an act of corruption.
Now, we must also remember, around that time Anwar Ibrahim too was indicted for corruption and was found guilty and was sentenced to six years' jail. But Anwar’s ‘crime’ involved no monetary gain. Rafidah’s crime did.
Rafidah never denied the act. She in fact admitted it. But she explained that she sat in the meeting that approved the shares to her own son-in-law because Mahathir’s son’s application for shares was also being decided at the same time. According to Rafidah in her press statement, Mahathir had instructed her to make sure that his son got those shares.
So she sat in the meeting to ensure that the committee did just that, approve the shares for Mahathir’s son. When it came to approving the shares for her own son-in-law, she abstained from voting due to ‘conflict of interest’, although she did not leave the room when they deliberated on the matter.
Rafidah did not need to vote on the matter. All she needed to do was to sit there and no officer would dare vote against her son-in-law. No government officer in his right mind would dare oppose giving millions' worth of shares to his or her own minister’s son-in-law.
If you personally know Rafidah then you will know that she is a very strong-willed woman. She is not known as ‘The Iron Lady’ for nothing. All she needs to do is to stare at you and your balls will shrink (or tits, if you are a woman). She even dared challenge Mahathir and whacked him good and proper.
Anyway, the ACA and AG were both of the view that Rafidah committed a crime by sitting in the meeting that approved the shares to her own son-in-law. And the AG endorsed the ACA investigation papers and recommended that Rafidah be arrested and charged for corruption.
But before any Minister, Deputy Minister, or any ‘big shot’, can be arrested and charged, the AG must first obtain the approval of the Prime Minister. And the Prime Minister then, Dr Mahathir, said no. So the file was closed with a NFA stamp on the front cover.
The ACA said charge. The AG said charge. The PM said no charge. And that is what finally happened. No charge.
And Ezam revealed this entire episode to the public during a press conference in 1999. And he showed the reporters the documents to prove his allegation. Ezam was not lying. He was telling the truth. But the documents he revealed to the media had RAHSIA stamped on them. So Ezam was arrested and charged under the Official Secrets Act. He was then put on trial, found guilty, and sentenced to two years' jail.
Ezam was actually under Internal Security Act detention in the Kamunting Detention Centre at that time. So all they needed to do was to transfer him from Kamunting to the Kajang Prison to serve out his sentence. He never saw freedom until two years later.
For the government to win its case against Ezam they had to admit that the documents are genuine and are not fakes. Therefore, in that same breath, the government confirmed Ezam’s story about Rafidah. To send Ezam to jail they must admit the authenticity of the documents. If they say Ezam is lying, then how to charge him under the Official Secrets Act?
Okay, the police are now going to record the statement of this Nasir Safar chap. Now, whether the police investigation uncovers any crime committed by Nasir Safar is one thing. But even if they do, they still can’t charge him yet. They need to hand the file over to the AG for him to decide whether to charge Nasir Safar or not.
However, considering Nasir Safar’s ‘special status’, the AG also can’t decide on the matter. The AG will have to ‘seek guidance’ from the Prime Minister as to whether to charge Nasir Safar or not.
Okay, that is one issue. Next would be the recorded statement made by private investigator Bala concerning the Altantuya murder. During his detention and interrogation, Bala told the police that Nasir Safar was there when Sirul and Azilah picked up Altantuya and later murdered her.
A police report was made. The required ‘recorded statement’ was made. Will the police now look into this as well or is this one more case of NFA?
I would place RM1,000 on a bet that BOTH cases will end up with a NFA stamp on them. Want to take this bet? I could certainly do with the money.
Oh, and before I forget, read Raja Nazrin’s statement below: Do Not Mock the Law. Nazrin should be addressing this statement to the police and AG.
Oh, and one more thing, the Malacca CPO, Senior Assistant Commissioner (I) Datuk Mohd Rodwan Mohd Yusof, mentioned in the Star news report below, is the police officer who met Saiful in the Concorde Hotel two days BEFORE Anwar was alleged to have sodomised him. Rodwan was also accused of fabricating evidence during the Sodomy 1 trail as well.
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Cops to take statement from Nasir
Police will record a statement from the Prime Minister’s former special officer Datuk Nasir Safar over his alleged racist remarks during a 1Malaysia seminar here on Tuesday.
The statement is expected to be taken from Nasir, who is being investigated under the Sedition Act, in Kuala Lumpur some time on Friday.
Malacca CPO Senior Assistant Commissioner (I) Datuk Mohd Rodwan Mohd Yusof said police have almost wrapped up their investigation.
“We are speeding up the investigation as it involves a case of public interest.
“The investigation is about 85% complete and we have interviewed 30 people so far,” he told reporters here on Friday.
He added that police had received a total of 45 reports against Nasir -- 13 in Perak, nine in Malacca, five in Kedah, four in Penang, Pahang and Selangor, and three in Negri Sembilan and Johor.
He said police are expected to complete their probe by early next week before submitting the investigation papers to the deputy public prosecutor.
It was learned that among those called up for their statement were a state assemblyman, state MIC members, six journalists, officers from the State Special Affairs Department, the venue management and participants of the seminar.
Nasir, who was a speaker at the Rapat 1Malaysia seminar at the Melaka International Trade Centre in Ayer Keroh on Tuesday, caused a furore when he allegedly uttered racist remarks resulting in several local MIC and MCA members walking out of the hall.
He subsequently explained that he did not intend to make any racist remarks and apologised, following which he tendered his resignation. – The Star
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Raja Nazrin: Do Not Mock the Law
The Raja Muda of Perak, Raja Dr Nazrin Shah, today reminded legal practitioners not to mock nor smear the country's laws.
He said as legal practitioners, they should not only refer to or value a law when it benefited them, but dismiss or mock it if they felt it did not benefit them.
Raja Nazrin said this was because laws were important in ensuring continuity and credibility of an administration or government.
"Your level of excellence and honour in the legal profession in the public eye in future will depend on your wisdom and disciplined practice from now," he said at the presentation of the Certificate of Legal Practice issued by the Legal Profession Qualifying Board, Malaysia, to 238 recipients, here, today.
Raja Nazrin said if justice failed to be effectively and professionally managed, society and the nation would be heading towards destruction with crime becoming much more rampant.
"The legal enforcement machinery is seen to be getting weaker, perhaps personal interest are above professional interest now. Those who make professional interest their prioroty are a minority, who are sidelined from the main decision-making process in an organisation.
"The highest-level mechanism is also seen as increasingly weak to the extent that the public have come to regard the court as mere drama stage and losing their respect and trust.
"This scenario is no creation, but a precursor to the downfall of many Third World countries. The people suffer while the countries' top leaders flee and become exiles in other countries or hunted down for their wrongdoings."
The Perak Raja Muda said justice could not be administered in society or country if the laws contained elements of oppression and giving privileges to the powerful to dominate the weak and the rich to oppress the poor.
In fact, he said, there would be no justice if the legal machinery was impotent.
"A country's sovereignty depends on its seriousness in honouring its laws mirrored by its firmness and never compromising with practices that disrespect the law, and by its intolerance towards malpractices like misappropriation, criminal breach of trust, power abuse and corruption.
"There is sovereignty of the law if there is a strong spirit to uphold the law and truth as a way of life."
He said sovereignty of the law could also be guaranteed as long as the process of meting justice at the courts was not marred by unethical practices done from outside the courts to influence the decisions.
Raja Nazrin said managing justice required the collective role of various quarters, besides the professional understanding and respect for the ethics of every agency or individual involved.
"If the investigating and prosecuting officers do not produce quality work and show a high level of professionalism, if the defence counsel violate their professional code of ethics and if judges sacrifice the principle of truth, then justice will be compromised," he said. – Malaysian Digest
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