Altantuya trial & Najib Razak - why we seek alternative process

malaysiakini reported that Burmaa Oyunchimeg, a witness in the trial of the murder of Altantuya Shaariibuu and also a cousin of the murdered Mongolian model, claimed she saw a photo of a man named as Najib Razak, when she was shown the photo by the late Altantuya.

Needless to say, the world’s greatest de facto leader seized eagerly on Burmaa's account as the gospel truth (or as malaysiakini put it, 'took it at face value') and demanded answers from Najib

We know that his over-enthusiasm have been more about politics than concern over justice for Altantuya, especially more so when the world’s greatest political reformer, said de facto leader, had been virtually harassing Najib about this murder case during the Ijok by-election, with an incessant indecency.

But that incessant indecent harassment was perhaps explained by what we had learnt from Raja Petra’s Malaysia-Today. It seems then there was a de facto movement called GAN (Gerakan Anti-Najib) to oust Najib from the UMNO No 2 position (and by default, the DPM post) so that someone, in his wildest dream, with his hope-for triumphant court case to set aside his sacking from the UMNO NO 2 position, could slide gnam gnam into the high office that Najib would be forced to vacate because of the Altantuya case.

That unrealistic hope was crushed into smithereens when AAB unexpectedly dropped into Ijok not only to campaign for the candidate but to voice his support for and confidence in Najib. Then the court completed the demolition of that dream by dismissing the de facto appeal.

Desperation took place and a new scheme - God and probably a million Malaysians know from where - was hatched, involving this time an unlikely wish list of conspirators, a Triad comprising the de facto leader, his arch Nemesis, and Ku Li, to destabilise the AAB camp including Najib.

The conspiracy didn’t gain any purchase when the Grand Olde Man so happened to have a health setback at that period. Knowing as we all do Dr Mahathir, a man whose greatest strength as well as greatest weakness during his PM-ship had been his absolute loyalty to his people, I doubt very much he would ever countenance working with a man he despises to the very core of his soul.

Anyway, should and would Najib answer to the demand of the de facto leader?

The answer is obvious, but when the DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng posed the same question, and called for the PM to investigate into the issue of Burmaa's testimony, everyone sat up and took greater notice, for this was Lim Guan Eng, a far more politically credible person, the de jure secretary general of the largest political opposition party.

But even then, Lim Guan Eng notwithstanding, surely such a matter should be for the police, AG and the court! Even Lim was playing politics, though with his reputation (going to prison in speaking up for a Malay underaged girl rather than losing in an intra party powerplay), he was more more credible, beliveable and trusted.

But nevertheless, the two politicians had asked because of politics. Despite our knowledge that what Lim had asked (of the PM) has not been correct process, we still support Lim because we want answers too. And that's because we fear there won't be any answer, due to our distrust in the police, AG and the courts.

That’s the sad part of how our standard system has so failed us that we now seek an alternative system, one proposed by Lim Guan Eng, that the PM initiates an investigation.

Which western democracy has its PM (or president) investigating into a murder case, when it should be the job of the police? In fact, if a PM of western democracy were to intervene he would have been accused of political interference by the police, and in all likelihood, told to butt out. For an example of western democracy, read Mach 2.0 Mouth which I posted two years ago.

The answer is Malaysia, where we aren’t quite a dictatorship (yet, thank goodness we don’t have a self proclaimed de facto PM) but at the same time we don’t trust our democracy, its official organs like the police, and the standard process.

If we look at the fundamentals, we must blame both the police and the police minister (the PM himself) for our lack of faith in due process under standard means. We have to call for the highest level of intervention, whether this be a murder trial or entrance for students into universities and selection of the students' choice courses.

That's the ridiculous and dsyfunctional state of affairs of our system, where the PM would be called upon regularly to micro manage the country.

Just look at the police force.

It's been revealed by a Royal Commission to be one that’s generally corrupt and inept. The Royal Commission has had to come up with recommendations that were as long as the Mahabharata.

As if that was not enough, we have a deputy ‘police’ minister who has been accused of frightening corruption, and a policeman who was head of the ACA who has been accused of avaricious corruption and sexual abuse.

Then Tan Sri Haniff (a former IGP) did an unprecedented, coming out of retirement to criticise the police ineffectiveness in curbing the current disgraceful and rampant occurrences of crimes in Johor Baru. His admonition was immediately followed by revelations of web allegations that the police force works in cahoots with crime syndicates in that state

The current IGP termed those allegations as slander instead of stating an intention to investigate those allegations to confirm its veracity. He forgets that public service convention of any democracy doesn't permit the public service to sue any member of the public for criticising the service, no matter how severe the criticisms may be. The public service has only one recourse, which is to rebut the criticisms through evidence and facts, or alternatively to investigate the allegations to assess the veracity of the accusations.

The IGP should stop threatening members of the public to shut them up.

Hey, let's not forget too the previous IGP (immediate to the current one) who committed the unmitigated public service offence of warning UMNO MPs during a cosy private briefing that unless they supported the police in opposing the IPCMC, the police force couldn’t guarantee they would be supported by the police to win in the next election.

And of course we have a PM and concurrently ’police’ minister who seems to have succumbed to the police threats in his inability to live up to his promise of establishing the IPCMC, that was recommended by the Royal Commission. As if to add insult to injury, he allowed the current IGP to be awarded a Tan Sri

To cap it all, the two accused in the Altanrtuya Shaariibuu's murder should so happen to be police officers

What a police nightmare, but the UMNO-police symbiotic relationship must be broken up. Who but only the PM can do that

Are we lost then?