Would it come as any surprise to you if I said it seems to me a vast segment of Malaysians appear very sceptical – if not outright suspicious of the way the Badawi regime is going about handling the Anwar investigation?
More specifically, there have been very serious claims raised about the credibility of the highest ranking law enforcement officers; namely, the inspector-general of police, Musa Hassan, and the attorney-general Abdul Gani Patail. It is clear that as this pursuit of Anwar continues, his camp is determined to make the credibility of the law enforcement establishment a central concern. At this rate, there is bound to be more words and pages to be written about - and a shadow cast over - the present investigation, and we will surely relive some of the drama of the previous Anwar trial.
Now I suspect I’m not stating anything you didn’t already figure out yourself. After all, you probably read the same words I did from one of Anwar’s lawyers, R. Sivarasa as reported by Malaysiakini. According to the report: ‘Sivarasa said the proceedings saw the illegal removal of DNA samples from forensic custody and the ‘planting’ of blood samples. The disclosure of these incidents in court led to the expunging of the entire DNA evidence.’
Surely the Umnoputera regime recognises that they obviously have a credibility problem, and it is getting worse by the day. Perhaps that partly explains why the attorney-general and the inspector-general have been rather sparse in the current war-of-words being exchanged between both the regime and Anwar’s camp. Mind you, it’s quite incredible that the PM – who has himself been under considerable pressure - has found it fit to comment on matters of the investigation while the attorney-general and IGP have been mum and out of the media spotlight. Now that I think about it, we've even heard more about this issue from Syed Hamid Albar! If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought there’s a concerted effort not to give these two figures any more visibility than is warranted.
So while the big guns in the law enforcement establishment plan their next move – DNA or no DNA for now, etc. – Badawi’s house of cards could really come tumbling down on him if this investigation of Anwar also progresses in the same questionable way that the 1998-99 one did. And from the looks of it, I don’t think even the most impartial observers of the public relations battle thus far would disagree that the regime is not off to a good start at all on this one.
Listening to Anwar and his lawyers repeatedly remind us about the improprieties and injustice meted out to him previously, I am reminded of the following quote by one Ramsey Clark: ‘Who will protect the public when the police violate the law?’
The Badawi regime’s credibility problem will only worsen if it continues to ignore the glaring case being compiled by Anwar concerning the impartiality of the highest ranking law enforcement officers.
‘The only stable state is the one in which all men are equal before the law.’
- Aristotle
G. Krishnan
Subscribe To
Posts
Comments