PM’s strange reaction to Sirul’s impending confession – Ravinder Singh

It is strange, very strange, the way the prime minister reacted to reporters’ questions about the possibility of Sirul Azhar Umar opening up the cupboard of skeletons.

For him to dismiss former police commando’s claim that he acted (to kill and blast Altantuya Shaariibuu into smithereens) under orders as “utter rubbish” is unbelievable.

What makes him 100% sure that it is 100% rubbish? When did it become the PM’s job to make such a declaration? 

As head of the country which is under the world’s looking glass regarding this high profile case, is he not the least interested in restoring the dignity of the county and its law enforcement system?

Why is the PM reinforcing the IGP’s stance that he will not open a fresh investigation into this case to determine the truth or otherwise of Sirul’s statement?

The IGP said that there must be “sufficient grounds” for him to proceed with investigations. He cited Sec. 110 (1)(b) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CPC) saying that this section actually prohibited the police from proceeding further if there were no sufficient grounds for an investigation.

There might be no sufficient grounds if it was a tweet from some unknown person, from a child, or from a person with a known mental problem.

But in this case, the statement is from someone who was charged with murder and found guilty, and is not insane.

This fact throws the IGP’s excuse into the drain. The person is on death row, and at the very least, he must be given the benefit of the doubt created by his statement of having been under orders to do the dastardly act. Justice requires that.

The PM, by his defence of the IGP’s closure of the case, appears to be either covering up for the inefficiency of the police investigations or perhaps is aware of the orders that were given to Sirul and for reasons best known to him, wants to keep things under the carpet.

As a responsible PM, Najib should have held his head high and calmly answered that he will liaise with his Australian counterpart to allow our IGP to have access to Sirul to record the latter’s statement to start investigating his claim.

And at home, he should have directed the IGP to commence investigating Sirul’s claim immediately and leave no stone unturned, until the person(s) who gave the order to annihilate Altantuya are found and brought to justice.

This would have brought much respect to him at home and from around the world.

What yardstick does the police use to decide whether there is “sufficient ground” to investigate statements made by people? 

Statements by certain people have been so quickly investigated and those responsible charged with sedition.

Statements by some other people, which have similar or worse “seditious” tones, have not only not been investigated but even defended as having been made in defence of a certain religion and therefore not seditious.

In this case, would Sirul’s statement not be seditious (at the very least) if it is found that his insinuation that some high-ranking person(s) had given the order to annihilate Altantuya is false?

The IGP’s outright refusal to investigate Sirul’s statement that he was merely following orders and that the real murderer(s) are on the loose, is very unprofessional to say the least.

Does his conscience allow him to sleep soundly and peacefully with the doubt created by Sirul’s statement that police investigations had sent the wrong persons to the gallows while the one(s) who should be hanged are walking free?

Is the IGP not aware that such blunders can happen and have happened, and that when discovered the courts do put the clock back?

A case in point is that of a murder that took place on the night of April 6, 1979, in a secluded underpass off the Federal Highway. The person charged with the murder was found guilty and sentenced to death, but when a witness made a confession a few days later, the case was reopened and the convicted killer was freed after serving about 25 months in prison. This was the case of Jean Perera Sinnappa.

Similarly in Altantuya’s case, someone (one of the two accused) is opening up to confess as to who had ordered them to carry out the dastardly act of killing and then blowing up of the corpse, the deletion of immigration records, the use of armed forces C4 explosives.

So why is the police in this case not interested in getting to the bottom of the case? And why has the PM taken it upon himself to defend the police?    

It was said by a previous PM that if you tell a lie and repeat it often enough, the people will believe it is the truth. This became the SOP of our country, and may work with some people some of the time, but not with all the people all the time.

Perhaps it is little realised by the believers of this SOP that if you tell a lie and repeat it often, one day it will blow in your face like a balloon you keep blowing.

* Ravinder Singh reads The Malaysian Insider.