“Ear biting” MACC

YOU know someone is in trouble when he starts to play dirty. Take for example the fight between boxing heavyweights Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield in 1997.
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Tyson knew he was in trouble. So what did he do? He bit Holyfield’s ear. He played dirty.

Which brings me to the MACC and its police report against Thai pathologist Dr Pornthip Rojanasunan for supposedly making a sub judice statement to the press.

I have not read the actual press report in question so I would not want to comment whether such a claim has any merit.

My point here is that there are ways and means to deal with a complaint of this sort. The most obvious and fair procedure would be to make a complaint with the inquiry itself. In other words to allow the inquiry process to sort out any problems “in house”.

By making a police report, what the MACC has done in effect is to bring a third party into the mix.

A chief witness now has to not only deal with justifying her findings to the inquiry but also with her possible arrest and interrogation by the police.

Instead of playing fair, the MACC has taken a route which could at the very worst intimidate a witness or at the very least irritate her to the point where she won’t come to the country to take part in the inquiry.
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Ear biting is fighting dirty
BRAVE NEW WORLD
January 7, 2010 – the Star

There are ways and means to deal with the alleged leak of evidence yet to be tendered to the Teoh Beng Hock inquest. The most obvious and fair procedure would be to make a complaint with the inquiry itself.

YOU know someone is in trouble when he starts to play dirty. Take for example the fight between boxing heavyweights Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield in 1997.
…

Tyson knew he was in trouble. So what did he do? He bit Holyfield’s ear. He played dirty.

Which brings me to the MACC and its police report against Thai pathologist Dr Pornthip Rojanasunan for supposedly making a sub judice statement to the press.

I have not read the actual press report in question so I would not want to comment whether such a claim has any merit.

My point here is that there are ways and means to deal with a complaint of this sort. The most obvious and fair procedure would be to make a complaint with the inquiry itself. In other words to allow the inquiry process to sort out any problems “in house”.

By making a police report, what the MACC has done in effect is to bring a third party into the mix.

A chief witness now has to not only deal with justifying her findings to the inquiry but also with her possible arrest and interrogation by the police.

Instead of playing fair, the MACC has taken a route which could at the very worst intimidate a witness or at the very least irritate her to the point where she won’t come to the country to take part in the inquiry.

And even if she did come back to the country to face down her accusers, just how swift would the police be in handling the problems of their fellow government servants?

In other words, the MACC, by making the police report instead of simply lodging a complaint to the inquiry, has put a spanner in the works.

I wonder why? Is it not interested in finding out the truth about Teoh Beng Hock’s death? If it were concerned with justice, then surely it would want the inquiry to continue smoothly and honestly.

Unless of course, it does not view this as an inquiry but some sort of scrap that it has to win at all costs, where it has to ensure that what really happened in Plaza Masalam remains uncovered.

Why it would want this is beyond me, but what is clear is that if it views this inquest as a fight, it is obviously in trouble because it is playing dirty.

Only rank-and-file were involved? – Truth is stranger than fiction

Attorney-General Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail today confirmed only rank-and-file servicemen were involved in the scandalous theft of the two F-5E jet engines two years ago, saying they would be prosecuted soon. Police had said three airmen and a company agent are the only suspects in the audacious crime that spotlighted lax security in the country’s military installations.

The country’s top lawyer revealed that Uruguay was the final destination of the two G J85-21A turbojet engines found missing from the Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF) Sungei Besi base in 2007, adding the government will seek help from foreign authorities to recover the engines worth RM50 million each.

But he was not sure if the engines were still in the South American nation or have been sent elsewhere.

“The priority is now to find the jet engines,” he told a press conference in his Putrajaya office.
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Jet Engines – Truth is stranger than fiction

WE HAVE our own Tiger scandal. Of all the bizarre things that have been stolen anywhere, anytime, any place, that of two F5 Tiger fighter aircraft engines worth RM100mil from our air force must rank as among the top of the list.

That hefty pieces of equipment can be quietly squirreled out of a high security Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF) base and taken all the way to Argentina complete with documentation is a major embarrassment to the country.

More importantly, it is a serious security breach which is no laughing matter, although the event has considerable satirical possibilities and gives weight to that old saying that truth is indeed stranger than fiction.

It takes the spirit of “Malaysia Boleh” to new astronomical heights but for totally the wrong reasons. If only this spirit of ingenuity, innovation and cunning were used for all the right reasons, we would have achieved high-income status a long time ago.

Instead, those engaged in such nefarious and illegal activities seem to be the ones moving up the precarious high-income ladder at a rapid pace, leaving the rest of us gawking up in utter amazement at the means that they have employed to get there.
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Engine of Political Fraud

A reflection about what the theft of the Malaysian Royal Military Air Force (RMAF) symbolizes of our present political establishment.

A lot of us expressed disbelief that a RMAF jet fighter engines worth RM 50 million each were stolen along with other parts from the aircraft. The total cost is well over RM 100 million in terms of loss. Our government has not explained to us the opportunity cost of those aircrafts.

But our disbelief is not that there is crime in our country. It is not even that the theft is very likely an inside job. We know that most thefts in Malaysia on a grand national project scale are inside jobs. Our disbelief is that the present government is so completely corrupt and incompetent as to cause a breach of national security and endanger all of us.
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Those jet fighter engines are symbolic of our dynamism, growth and discipline. It is therefore fitting that this Barisan National led government watched over its theft, if not virtually participated in it as a result of its policies and morality. They weakened our national dynamism with their mind numbing, fool elevating constant flip-flopping of our educational and national policies. They drive out our best and brightest or make them suffer under the weight of fools. They killed our national growth with their wanton greed which the theft symbolizes. Those in the power elite have taken what is not theirs. They have twisted policies to serve them and their insatiable greed. And we have no sense of governmental and national discipline, in terms of far-reaching policies for the betterment of our country and the good of our people. The government we have enthroned now are completely and utterly self-serving, more so when they claim they are serving our interests.

…read more (loyarBurok.com)

Why are investigations on missing engines taking so long?

More than two years after two F5-E fighter jet engines were stolen and a year after the theft was discovered, police investigators are finally looking for documents to provide clues as to how the equipment could have been taken out of the country.

In a case that has become a major embarrassment for Malaysia and Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak, who was Defence Minister at the times the engines were stolen, investigators have lingered over the case since the Royal Malaysian Air Force first lodged a report last August.

But since the thefts were publicly revealed recently, the authorities have come under pressure to explain why the case has taken so long to investigate and to deny claims of a cover up.
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Is the AG serious?

Attorney-General Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail has described the embarrassing theft of two F-5E jet engines as a “serious matter”.

Which is why his chambers is going all-out to solve the case as “the public needs to know” — a full six months after the police investigation papers landed in his office.

“It is a serious matter. To my knowledge, it is two engines, and what makes matters worse is that the loss was discovered about a year later. I need a full investigation. I think the public deserves to know,” Bernama quoted Gani as saying in New Delhi yesterday.

Is the AG serious? For his statement is incredible considering his chambers haven’t appeared to have taken action on the case two years after the treacherous theft in 2007.

And now that the case has become public, he is trying to convince Malaysians that this is a “serious matter” and no effort will be spared.

Yes it is. Its not shoplifting, is it? Its not a snatch theft or a common burglary which even the police have trouble solving.

But sparing no effort? What has been done since the theft was discovered? Will there be more revelations of other items stolen from the military?
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Malaysian leaders hit by theft of jet engines

The Malaysian government faces a fresh corruption crisis after officials admitted that two fighter jet engines had disappeared from an air force base after apparently being illicitly sold by military officers to a South American arms dealer.

Najib Razak, prime minister, said there would be a full inquiry into the thefts, which happened in 2007 and 2008, when he was defence minister. However, opposition parties accused the government of a cover-up.

Lim Kit Siang, parliamentary leader of the opposition Democratic Action party, said the authorities had been “super slow” and alleged the prime minister’s response had painted a “frightening picture of a government of thieves”.

Idris Ahmad of the allied Parti Islam SeMalaysia said “powerful people” had been involved. “We don’t want only the ikan bilis [anchovies] to be arrested while the sharks are allowed to swim freely,” he said.
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Zaid: The era of Pakatan Rakyat

The person credited as the chief architect of the common policy document, PKR’s Zaid Ibrahim was in no doubt that Putrajaya was indeed within reach.

Not one but two engines missing!

The fact that not one but two fighter aircraft engines could go missing from the Royal Malaysian Air Force’s (RMAF) inventory is not just a normal case of theft. It involves national security. And not only must heads roll, those involved must be tried for nothing less than treason.

The government’s response and the manner in which the case has been handled so far have been appalling to say the least. We are now being told that the theft was discovered last May. And a police report was lodged only last August. So what was the Defence Ministry and RMAF doing in those three months? Were they looking under mattresses for the engines?

But yet Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak claims there is no cover up. He was then Defence Minister in Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s Cabinet. He should have recommended then for the theft to be announced to the public.
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The 100 billion legacy

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Wain was granted access to the former premier for a series of exhaustive interviews. It may well be the most definitive picture painted of Mahathir to date, and certainly is even-handed. Wain, now a writer in residence at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore, is by no means a Mahathir sycophant. Advance publicity for the book has dwelt on an assertion by Wain that Mahathir may well have wasted or burned up as much as RM100 billion (US$40 billion at earlier exchange rates when the projects were active) on grandiose projects and the corruption that that the projects engendered as he sought to turn Malaysia into an industrialized state. Although some in Malaysia have said the figure is too high, it seems about accurate, considering such ill-advised projects as a national car, the Proton, which still continues to bleed money and cost vastly more in opportunity costs for Malaysian citizens forced to buy any other make at huge markups behind tariff walls. In addition, while Thailand in particular became a regional center for car manufacture and for spares, Malaysia, handicapped by its national car policy, was left out.

Almost at the start of the book, Wain encapsulates the former premier so well that it bears repeating here: Mahathir, he writes, “had an all-consuming desire to turn Malaysia into a modern, industrialized nation commanding worldwide respect. Dr Mahathir’s decision to direct the ruling party into business in a major way while the government practiced affirmative action, changed the nature of the party and accelerated the spread of corruption. One manifestation was the eruption of successive financial scandals, massive by any standards, which nevertheless left Dr Mahathir unfazed and unapologetic.”

That pretty much was the story of Malaysia for the 22 years that Mahathir was in charge.
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