Friday, October 10, 2008

ABDUL GANI PATAIL GETS A BLACK EYE

Attorney-General Abdul Gani Patail got a direct hit in the eye Wednesday when Mat Zain Ibrahim, a retired senior police officer, testified at Anwar's sodomy trial that it was Gani Patail - then senior deputy public prosecutor with the Attorney-General's Chambers - who tampered with evidence and interfered with internal investigations into a savage assault on sacked DPM Anwar Ibrahim.

According to Malaysiakini, Mat Zain’s claims were first made public on Wednesday, during Anwar’s sodomy trial in the Kuala Lumpur Sessions Court. Anwar’s lawyer Sulaiman Abdullah had read out the document in court during submissions on why Abdul Gani should not be involved in any aspect of the sodomy case.

However, the media was told not to report the details pending the court’s decision on the admissibility of the evidence. The gag order was lifted yesterday.

According to Mat Zain's 18-page document, he was instructed on September 27, 1998, by then IGP Abdul Rahim Mohd Noor to head an investigation team, after Anwar lodged a report that day that he had been beaten up while in police custody, thereby sustaining injuries including a ‘black eye’.

Read the full report here.


GANI PATAIL IS PROBABLY BUSY SHREDDING DOCUMENTS AND PACKING A BIG SUITCASE.


SO WHERE YOU ARE OFF TO, AGP? TIERRA DEL FUEGO? BUENOS AIRES? OR SUNGAI BULOH?

RPK's TRIAL: Oral & Moral Support

(pic by P.Y. Wong)

Zorro Unmasked aka Bernard Khoo and I photographed yesterday at the Petaling Jaya Sessions Court where Raja Petra is being tried on a sedition charge for an article posted on Malaysia Today. The prosecution has already started tying itself up in knots with ill-prepared witnesses who seem to be there merely because they have been instructed to play their roles in this time-wasting charade.

Read the "offending" article again. I'll quote one section of it just to refresh your memory:

[Abdul Razak Baginda's] Affidavit also reveals that Altantuya was camped outside Razak’s house and this caused him to panic. He then went running to Najib, and Rosmah summoned Najib’s ADC, Musa Safri, and instructed him to solve Razak’s problem. Musa then summoned the two police officers currently on trial. So, it appears like Razak and the two police officers are not the only ones involved. Najib, Rosmah and Musa have also been implicated in this entire thing. And why the need for the police officer to declare that he had already killed six people before this if murder was not what was on everyone’s mind?

Then the Attorney-General did a very strange thing. Just before the trial started, he made a public announcement that only three people and no others are involved in the murder. This is not only strange but highly irregular as well. It is not the Attorney-General’s job to determine this. This is for the court to decide. Furthermore, the trial had not even started yet so how does the Attorney-General know what is going to surface in the trial? No one has testified yet and until all the testimonies are heard who knows who else is involved and whether the three accused who on trial are even guilty or not? The Attorney-General made it appear like he knows the outcome of the trial even before the trail commenced? How not to feel that the trial is a show-trial?


The only ones who ought to be offended, obviously, are Najib, Rosmah, and their security aide-de-camp DSP Musa Safri. Doesn't it make sense, if those named feel they have been wrongly accused, for them to file a statutory declaration to negate Razak Baginda's affidavit? After all, RPK wasn't the one who mentioned their involvement - it was Abdul Razak Baginda.

So why did Gan Tack Guan, chief investigating officer in the Altantuya murder case, lodge a police report against RPK? On whose instruction did he do so? In his shoes, I would have immediately summoned DSP Musa Safri to be questioned on the sequence of events leading to chief inspector Azilah Hadri and Corporal Sirul Azhar Umar's being implicated in the murder of the Mongolian woman. Instead, Gan chose to accuse RPK of sedition.

What utter nonsense! Even a primary school kid can see the whole thing has been a colossal cover-up staged on behalf of Najib and Rosmah - who are ultimately answerable for the actions of their police bodyguards.

I salute all the men and women who have made it a point to turn up at the courthouse every morning as a show of support for RPK. You are all Malaysians I feel proud to call my friends. My timing yesterday was just a wee bit off and I didn't get a chance to enter the courtroom - so I didn't see RPK at all. But it was good to have a brief chat with his feisty wife Marina and RPK's youngest daughter, the vivacious Princess Sara.

Let's pray that the judge assigned to RPK's case is fair-minded and independent-spirited. And let's pray, too, that we will soon have a brand new, uncorrupt government that will immediately repeal the ISA and release all the detainees!

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

WAKE UP & SMELL THE PALM OIL!

WHAT RAINFOREST?

36 minutes
English/Malay/Iban with English Subtitles
Produced by Hilary Chiew and Chi Too

Synopsis:

When oil palm barons began encroaching on their native customary rights (NCR) land with claims of buyovers sanctioned by the government, the families in Kampung Lebur, near Kuching in Sarawak, were devastated.

One man stood his ground. Segan anak Degon was the only one of 101 families who managed to hold off an oil palm plantation from replacing his ancestral patch of forest which included his paddy field and fruit trees planted by his forefathers.

Like his fellow villagers, the forest was the sole source of livelihood for Segan and his wife. But unlike his fellow villagers, Segan fought... and won. And this is his story.

An independent review of What Rainforest?:

It had all the necessary ingredients of a thrilling Hollywood blockbuster:
A stoic hero and his long-suffering wife.
Ruthless land-grabbing corporations.
A plot that wove a tale of David minus his slingshot versus Goliath.
Of conviction of strength in the face of greed, gangsters and cockamamie policies.
And also a credible supporting cast and beautiful long-range and wide angle shots of one of the world’s oldest rainforests.

But
What Rainforest? neither thrilled nor entertained.

Of course, the co-producers of this 36-minute documentary – Hilary Chiew and Chi Too – never intended for it to. Instead, they succeeded all too well in making you burn as you watch the outright trampling of the basic rights of the indigenous Iban folk and their ancestral lands.


PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION AGAINST THIS WANTON ABUSE OF OUR INDIGENOUS KINFOLK AND THEIR ANCIENT LANDS!
SARAWAK SOUNDS ALARM OVER PENAN RAPE CLAIMS
Oct 7, 08 6:41pm

Authorities in Sarawak have called on police to investigate reports that women and girls from the Penan tribe have been raped by workers from jungle logging camps.

The plight of the Penan people was made famous in the 1990s by environmental activist Bruno Manser, who campaigned to protect their way of life and fend off the loggers, before he vanished in 2000 amid suspicion of foul play.

"Let the police do a full investigation. It is important that we get to the truth of all these things," Sarawak Deputy Chief Minister George Chan said of the rape claims, according to the state news agency Bernama.

"This is criminal but we must have very firm evidence as it could portray a very bad national image," he said.

[Read the rest of the Malaysiakini story here.]


HOW TAIB BULLIES THE RAKYAT
Al Tugauw | Oct 7, 08 5:09pm

According to the The Borneo Post report, "Let's talk, but don't try any rough stuff with me: CM" on Oct 3, Sarawak Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud allegedly said he is open to discussion on a supposed eviction of some 10,000 villagers from 13 Kedayan-Malay villages in Bekenu, Sarawak.

The question is what discussion? Why only now?

Does anyone think that this man is really open to discussion? Or he just wants the people to come begging to him so that he can placate them with some devious promises not meant to be fulfilled? The report also stated that he said although he had allegedly yet to hear from the affected villagers, he felt that the best way to resolve the matter was to come and see him and not ‘try any rough stuff’ with him.

What rough stuff? In any event why shouldn't the people play rough when this is the way they are treated, like illegal squatters and asked to get off their land and leave their houses just before Hari Raya? He has yet to hear? What rubbish!

In the first place, doesn't he know or are we to believe that he doesn't know? This is the eviction of 10,000 people we are talking about here whose families have been on this land since 1910, and they are squatters?

Some new company comes and they suddenly get more rights to the land than those who have been on it for almost 100 years? And Taib has yet to hear from the affected villagers?

"‘Because once you start playing rough, you cut all communication with me. In the end, you still have to communicate with me because I'm the government… whether or not the claim is good (only) then I can consider,’ he told reporters at the second day of his Hari Raya Aidilfitri open house at Stadium Perpaduan here yesterday." said the report further.

This is how Taib bullies the rakyat. Why was there no communication with the affected villagers except for the notice of eviction? So the villagers who have been living there for the last 100 years now have to prove their claim? Surely they should have been considered even before any such decision was made?

The arrogance of this man seems to know no bounds. Just because he ‘is the government’ does that mean he can do what he likes and treat the people as he likes?

[Read the full story on Malaysiakini.]

VISIT AL TUGAUW'S BLOG - SARAWAK HEADHUNTER!

Monday, October 6, 2008