Saturday May 17, 2008

Cabinet wants Dr M and five others investigated

By SHAILA KOSHY and V.P. SUJATA

PUTRAJAYA: The Cabinet has agreed that investigations be conducted into all allegations against former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and five others identified in the Royal Commission of Inquiry report on the V.K. Lingam video clip.

Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Mohd Zaid Ibrahim said the five others were lawyer Datuk V.K. Lingam, tycoon Tan Sri Vincent Tan, Umno secretary-general Datuk Seri Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor and former Chief Justices Tun Eusoff Chin and Tun Ahmad Fairuz Sheikh Abdul Halim.

Attorney-General Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail said he would go through the report before announcing whether he would be ordering a probe.

“I will study the recommendations in the report very carefully, after which I will issue a statement at the appropriate time.

“Please give us time to do our job properly,” he said.

Zaid said the six would be investigated for offences under the Sedition Act, Official Secrets Act and the Penal Code, which included obstruction of justice.

“All the recommendations in the report are advisory in nature so we have to have another investigation,” he said, adding that the Government had taken note of the recommendations for judicial reform and the establishment of a Judicial Appointments Commission.

“The Government is in the process of finalising the relevant laws to set up this commission and it will be made known soon,” he said, adding that the Government also proposed to include the recognition of “judicial power” as proposed by the Commission.

He said these moves were vital to help restore the people’s confidence in the judiciary.

The Cabinet, he said, had urged the public, including the media, to allow uninterrupted investigations without undue pressure and prejudice against any individual identified in the report.

“It must be reiterated that in our legal system, an accused is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law,” he told reporters at the Legal Affairs Division of the Prime Minister’s Department here yesterday.

The Royal Commission was formed to verify the authenticity of the video clip purportedly showing prominent lawyer Lingam on the phone brokering judicial appointments with a senior judge. Twenty-one witnesses testified at the 17-day inquiry which began on Jan 14.

Zaid also said that the Cabinet had agreed for the contents of the report to be released and sold to the public.

The report, which comes in four volumes comprising 2,889 pages, will cost RM541.60; of which the main report costs RM161.40 while the notes of proceedings, statutory declaration and lists of exhibits are priced at RM123.30, RM120 and RM136.90 respectively.

The public can buy the report at the Legal Affairs Division from Tuesday afternoon.

In its report, the commission said that the video clip, made by businessman Loh Gwo Burne, was indeed recorded at Lingam's house in December 2001.

It said it had no hesitation in finding that the clip to be genuine, real, reliable and trustworthy and its contents true in substance and material particulars.

In examining Lingam and Fairuz's testimonies, which they described as bare denials, against the direct evidence elicited from the phone conversation as well as the evidence of Gwo Burne and his businessman father Loh Mui Fah, the commission found that it was none other than Fairuz that Lingam was speaking to on the telephone.

The panel also said the evidence showed that Lingam was not intoxicated during the conversations, as he had suggested.

It added that the evidence also militates against Lingam's other suggestion that he could have been “bullshitting” or bragging.

The commission said that, in the final analysis, there was conceivably an insidious movement by Lingam with the covert assistance of his close friends Tan and Tengku Adnan to involve themselves actively in the appointment of judges, in particular that of Fairuz as Chief judge of Malaya and later Court of Appeal president.

In the process, the panel added that Dr Mahathir was also entangled.

While noting that the group's ultimate aim could not be ascertained, given the limitation of the terms of reference, the commission said it was reasonable to suggest that it could not be anything but self-serving.

The panel said the collective and cumulative actions of the main characters concerned had the effect of seriously undermining the independence and integrity of the judiciary as a whole.

Saturday May 17, 2008

Better late than never, says Wan Azizah

KUALA LUMPUR: Opposition Leader Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail has welcomed the Government's decision to make public the report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the controversial V.K. Lingam video clip.

She said she felt that decision should have been made sooner but added, nevertheless, it was better late than never.

“We knew the clip was authentic all along,” she said yesterday.

She said the findings vindicated her husband, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, who had been jailed for abuse of power, saying that it proved that the judiciary was tainted and that cases could be fixed.

She said there was a need to re-examine cases which Chief Justices Tun Ahmad Fairuz Sheikh Abdul Halim and Tan Sri Eusoff Chin had presided over as this blot on their names created doubts as to whether they had dispensed justice fairly.

Anwar's lawyer S.N. Nair said his client was seeking to review all of his criminal and civil cases presided over by the two former top judges.

The Lingam video clip came to light last September when Anwar, PKR de facto leader, released it to the media.

Lingam’s phone conversation revolved around the fixing of the appointment of judges.

After a considerable delay, the Government ordered the setting up of a Royal Commission to carry out an inquiry into the video clip.

The commission found the clip to be authentic.

It suggested action be taken against the six individuals implicated including Lingam, Fairuz, Eusoff, former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, Umno secretary-general Datuk Seri Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor and tycoon Tan Sri Vincent Tan.

Dr Wan Azizah said she welcomed the decision to investigate the six, although she questioned whether Attorney-General Tan Sri Gani Patail would do so fairly.

“How do we undo all these things in the judiciary?

“We shouldn’t have had these problems in the first place. We have to bring back credibility to the judiciary.”

On the Prime Minister’s Department's plan to lodge police reports against the media for reporting on the findings of the Royal Commission before it was made public, Dr Wan Azizah said the case was of public interest and the media was just being productive and positive.

“By reporting the findings, the media did not breach the security of the country,” she said.

Saturday May 17, 2008

A political thing, says Gwo Burne

PETALING JAYA: The move to make public the Royal Commission Report is politically motivated, says Loh Gwo Burne, who made the V.K Lingam video clip.

Gwo Burne said yesterday that he believed it was a “political thing” that the report is being made open to the public.

He added it appeared everything was politically motivated, from the beginning of the commission until the present day, with no real attempt to get at the truth.

“Look how much society had to pressure for the Royal Commission to be set up in the first place,” he said.

The Kelana Jaya MP, however, disagreed that investigations should include former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad because he was “victimised” by the people who surrounded him and tried to influence his decisions.

When asked whether he intended to release more of what he recorded at Lingam’s house in December 2001, Gwo Burne said he did not intend to do so in the immediate future.

It was reported that he had stashed more video clips entitled VK1, VK2 and others, somewhere in China.

“It is definitely somewhere. I just have to go find it.”

His father, businessman Loh Mui Fah lauded the decision although he had some reservations.

“It’s a positive move to make the findings public, but the question is whether it is politically inclined.

“Based on the fact that the commission had deliberated and postponed the findings so many times, there could be public speculation that a complete picture would not be painted,” he said.