Muhyiddin: BN canNOT 'transform'BECAUSE Sarawak Chief Minister Tan Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud warned Najib if you try to force me out you are finish as prime minister he will pull his 29 Member of Parliament
By Seat
[EDIT]
Najib administration believe the departure of the longest-serving chief minister will deflate opposition momentum in the east Malaysian state, which is almost as big as the entire Malay peninsula.
Call it the Najib paradox: the strength of his coalition depends largely upon on how weak he is as Prime Minister. The glue holds because he has no power over his partners.According to the DAP stalwart, Taib has “asked for a blank cheque” to continue as chief minister when he said he would stay to “groom a successor and form a new team” and9 najib shrugs off accusation with impunity; a second has no time for Cabinet meetings; a third dismisses a portfolio as people-centric as railways with the throwaway line that it does not represent her true identity. All the Prime Minister can do is smile and carry on. The smile is wearing thin.A fundamental equation has been quietly reversed Since power is central to umno schemes for the present and future, all parties have, by mutual consent, eliminated accountability from the algebra of governance to create a semblance of stability. Temperament and tantrum can coexist with venality and incompetence
The DAP dared the prime minister today to form a royal commission of inquiry (RCI) to probe the mysterious death of a Sarawak environment investigator in 2004.
DAP Parlimentary Leader Lim Kit Siang said in a statement that state Department of Environment investigating officer, Rumie Azzan had fallen from the ninth floor of Wisma STA (Sarawak Timber Association) in Kuching, back in September 2004.
“The Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak seems to be amenable to the establishment of a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Carcosa sex videotape scandal, not into the roles of the Attorney-General and the Police to ascertain why the threesome forming ‘Datuk T’ had not been arrested and prosecuted for crimes after three long weeks, but to establish the identity of the ‘key character’ in the video.
“Would Najib seriously consider the possibility of a RCI if the target of the Carcosa sex video tape screening had been the prime minister himself, the deputy prime minister or anyone of the Cabinet Ministers?” he questioned.
The recently surfaced video grabbed headlines when Opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim was accused of being the man in the video, of having sex with an alleged prostitute.
The Ipoh Timor MP said that the Sarawakians and Malaysians are entitled to ask why the prime minister is not prepared to establish RCI for a “whole host of more important and pressing public issues”.
He added that an inquest into Rumie’s mysterious death had returned an open verdict as the coroner was unable to determine whether the death “resulted from or was accelerated by any unlawful act or omission”.
“Many Sarawakians were reminded of Rumie’s mysterious death from height when in the course of official duties investigating a major environment case when the tragic case of Teoh Beng Hock falling to his death from the 14th floor of MACC headquarters in Shah Alam on July 16, 2009 shocked the nation,” Lim said.
The aide to Selangor executive councillor Ean Yong Hian Wah was a witness whose body was found sprawled on the fifth floor corridor of the anti-graft body’s Selangor headquarters following overnight questioning there.
“Is Najib prepared when he comes to Sarawak for the general elections campaign to announce a Royal Commission of Inquiry to re-open the riddle of the seven-year mysterious death of 31-year-old DOE investigating officer Rumie Azzan falling from ninth floor of STA in Kuching as there are many questions which remain unanswered – in particular whether it is suicide or murder?
“There have been too many cases of mysterious deaths whether occurring under official custody or involving government agencies – like the most outrageous recent case of Customs officer, Ahmad Sarbani Mohamed, falling to his death from the third floor of the MACC office in Jalan Cochrane, Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday,” Lim pointed out.
The death of Ahmad Sarbani, a customs officer, comes as a RCI is investigating Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) operational procedures and the death of Teoh in 2009 after a coroner’s inquest returned an open verdict of neither suicide nor homicide.
“Now MACC is to hold interrogation only on the ground floor of any MACC premises — making it one of its kind in the world for anti-corruption agencies and undoubtedly an international laughing-stock.
“This is trying to cure the symptom but not the disease — which is the lack of public confidence in the efficiency, independence and professionalism of the MACC,” he said.
He said if the MACC and the government do not know how to secure public confidence in the efficiency, independence and professionalism of the MACC, it is further testimony that the Barisan Nasional is “too decadent, corrupt and totally incapable of redemption” and a change of government is the only answer to revamp the whole system of governance in the country.
“Is the next measure for the MACC to move out of all multi-storey buildings and to operate only from single-storey buildings?” he mocked.
I refer to your article in No Holds Barred entitled ‘About sex and bribery’ and think you got the facts about the Zakaria Chek case on the car smuggling syndicate somewhat wrong.
For you kind information, the Customs Department was not involved in this scam. In fact, much to our exasperation, we were impeded in our investigations.
I was personally involved in the investigation of the case as part of a special task force in 1991. We single-handedly cracked the case after obtaining information from a confidential informant. It was only after we started confiscating the cars -- most of which were Honda Accords -- that the Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA; now MACC) approached us and said that they wanted to take-over the investigation.
We then decided that there would be a joint and parallel investigation together with the ACA and Bukit Aman.
The modus operandi, in a nutshell, was that cars from Singapore (presumably stolen but usually deregistered) would be driven by syndicate members into Johor Bharu through the Causeway. Yes, the cars came from Singapore but it went through as ‘day visits’ and then left on the roadside where police officers, who were colluding with the syndicate, would confiscate them and take them to the police impound warehouse.
After about a month, these cars would be forfeited and then ‘auctioned off’ by the police. The ‘auction’ was fixed so that a Mr Chen (a second-hand car dealer) would successfully bid for the cars. Once the cars were auctioned off, they were then reregistered with the Johor Bharu Road Transport Department and presented with legitimised logbooks.
Zakaria Chek was involved and so was the then Johor Bharu OCPD, Dato Rahim, who was charged along with a group of around eight police officers who operated from an office in Jalan Meldrum preparing the auction documents.
When we called in Mr Chen for investigation and questioning, he even boasted that he would make sure that we would all get transferred out and that we would feel the wrath of the police bearing against us. He was always seen with Zakaria Chek and Dato Rahim and even had a personal police staff stick that he carried around.
Our team even wanted to conduct a raid on the Johor Bahru central police station to secure evidence but was advised not to do so by HQ, as this would be the first time in history where a police station would be raided and this could cause irreparable reputational damage. However, we gathered such convincing evidence that Dato Rahim and a few other officers were convicted. Zakaria Chek escaped prosecution but was then stuffed in ‘cold storage’.
We seized more than 200 cars.
Although I cannot confirm whether this is the retaliation Mr Chen meant, a few months after the case was exposed, Customs officers were harassed at the Causeway by traffic police officers and summoned for even the most minor of traffic offences. Many officers ended up with dozens of traffic summonses. This, however, was resolved later through mediation.
I hope this will help to set some of the records straight.
Customs Deep Throat
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