A brief glimpse at a relationship in the Altantuya Shaariibuu case

malaysiakini has a news article about the prosecution star witness, Lance Corporal Rohaniza Roslan who took the stand in the murder trial of Altantuya Shaariibuu.

But the Star Online revealed extra, that Rohaniza admitted to the court, and all and sundry, that she has been the lover of one of the accused, Chief Inspector Azilah Hadri.

I quite admire her frankness in acknowledging the special relationship especially more so at a time of particular great distress for both of them. It must have been traumatic for her to be dragged in as a prosecution witness to testify against her lover.

I am not going into the in and outs of the court proceedings itself as I haven’t been keeping track of the proceedings. My only blogging contribution to the murder case thus far has been to dedicate a poem to Altantuya, to express sympathy for her tragic and cruel death – please see my posting Remembering Altantuyaa Shaariibuu at my other blog KTemoc Komposes.

My PABS co-founder, Susan Loone is the blogger who has been dedicatedly monitoring the case from Day 1. Kaytee being the lazy bloke that I am, especially with court proceedings, I’ll just wait for the verdict.

But two KPC* items sprang to my mind, namely:

*kay poh chnee (busybody)

One - She is a lance corporal, an ‘other rank’, whilst her lover is a Chief Inspector, an officer. Wouldn’t that make their relationship a case of ‘fraternization’, that is, discouraged or more correctly, prohibited personal relationship between officers and the other ranks.

In this context, the dictionary defines ‘fraternization’ as: To associate on friendly terms with an enemy or opposing group, often in violation of discipline or orders.

In the armed forces (perhaps the police may be more lenient), ‘fraternization’ carries that same meaning for 'personal' relationship between officers and the other ranks (even among men and men, or women and women), like being lovers or drinking buddies or mahjong kakis.

Unusually, in the armed forces the burden of avoiding ‘fraternization’ lies on the shoulders of officers as the onus would be on them to demonstrate exemplary leadership and uphold expected conduct.

Officers and ranks cannot ‘fraternize’ for the reason that close ‘personal’ relationship may compromise discipline and order which are vital to the unquestioning command and control and thus good conduct of the men and women in the other ranks.

There have been cases where an officer had been probihited from marrying an ‘other rank’ unless one of them resigned. If they had married without permission, they would be discharged from the service.

Two - At a religious level, wouldn’t that unmarried relationship which has been, in her words, rapat (very close) be a very dicey admittance?

If so, it would appear that in both service protocol and religious rules, the two had pushed at the boundaries of the permissible social envelope.

I am not judgemental but merely making an observation. But I have to once again salute, this time, her courage in daring to admit so much of her personal life in such a conservative society as ours.