SITTING ON A PILE OF DURIANS?

Zorro breaks his promise about blogging on things positive this week....but national interest prompts this post:

Yes it is 3.53am 17 January but the only way to get Hantu off my back is to blog about the story he threw into my face. I told him I was not going to write about the RCI because I was not there. He shot back at me: "I was there". I could not argue with that because Hantu has been hovering invisible (remember he is a hantu) and incognito throughout the sessions. "His body language was awful but telling." "Whose body language?" I asked. "That Tan Sri Haidar, who else." "And what has body language of the Head of the RCI got to do with the procedings?" I asked sleepily. That's when Hantu unraveled the day's episode. It started when ex-Bukit Bintang MP and lawyer Wee Choo Keong asked ACA Chuah if she questioned Lingam's brother Karasu in her investigation. That was when an agitated Haidar displayed his poor body language and asked Wee what was so important about his question. He was fidgety and was intensely tense, his body language revealed. Body Language experts say that when you fidget, your non-verbal language is declaring silently: I want to find something better to do; or I don't like what is happening; or We are sinking into deeper waters; or "Shit.....trouble is brewing." Experts interpret that when a person shows signs of being tense, the message loudly says: I am not comfortable with this....."

Wee pointed that as early as 5 March, 1998 his client Karasu was questioned by the ACA and again on 12 March, after which he was detained for 5 days and released on 17 March 1998. Evidently ACA Chuah was not aware of this. Wee then pointed out that late last year his client had made another police report detailing intimate knowledge of his brother's dealings with former Chief Justice Eusof Chin. As such Wee was offering his client as a witness to the Royal Commission. This is when the head of the RCIgave the impression to the packed room that he was sitting on a pile of durian! I remember reading this in the Sun: RCI chairman Tan Sri Haidar Mohamed Nor told theSun today it is good that people are willing to come forward and offer their help in the case.

But this did not seem to be the case yesterday during the hearing. He appeared to prevent Karasu from being a witness. After some whispering from Shanker, Haidar granted Wee leave to represent Karasu during the proceedings but Karasu's appearance as a witness is still in question.

It is terribly perplexing that here is somebody offering himself as a witness and yet a subpoena is not forthcoming. To me this is a shifty shift. The intent of this Royal Commission, commissioned by the King, is to clean up once and for all the mess the judiciary is embroiled in and it looks like roadblocks are put up to prevent the march to justice(pun intended, definitely). Isnt the RCI out to get the truth? As such Karasu should be subpoened as a witness. As a layman I ask why is the commission so reluctant to subpoena Lingam's brother as a witness? What is the head of the RCI afraid of? Are there things still closeted?

I am not being mischievous, but I too want this whole judiciary mess overhauled and running unhindered again....for the future generation that is. I produce here what happened during the Tun Salleh Abas affair over a hidden seal:

The Supreme Court Judges [Wan Suleiman, George Edward Seah, Azmi Kamaruddin, Eusoffe Abdoolcader and Wan Hamzah] who held the sitting were suspended on 6 July 1988. In their press statement made on the same day of their suspension, they said the following: -

“We would add that when we sought to sit in court, we were informed by the Chief Registrar of the Supreme Court, Haidar bin Mohd Noor, that instructions have been given by Tan Sri Abdul Hamid bin Haji Omar, the Acting Lord President, that none of the court staff should be present in court and the court doors should not be opened and we should not have the use of the facilities of the court including the Seal of the Supreme Court. In those circumstances, it even became necessary for Tan Sri Wan Suleiman himself as the presiding judge to sign the order which we made which in fact should have been the duty of the Chief Registrar of the Supreme Court.”

You tell me, isn't this exasperating? This RCI job is of national interest and transparency should be the order of the day! Intriguing? "looks like it, sounds like it"....CORRECT, CORRECT, CORRECT? The common man rest their case, your Honor.

dang! too early for a single malt....coffee at 5.31am will do....thick and black...no sugar please.