The fate of 3 helpful witnesses

My friend recently got in a cab in KLIA and had the misfortune to catch a 70 year old cabbie in a foul mood. What he told my friend that got to me can be unprintable but he did mention a point that I find pertinent.

"When we read newspapers" he said, "read many stories and try to link them together to see what's developing."

Can't disagree with him. I got off my lazy ass, plow through some newspaper and decided to look at the fate of 3 helpful Malaysians in aid of the Malaysian legal process.

The first chap is Mr. Teoh Beng Hock. MACC officially declared that he is or was a witness in their probe and it is not of MACC's interest that he is dead. Well dead he is and he died in MACC premises. If this is how MACC treats helpful witness, then they are literally killing off their sources of information.

The second chap is Mr. Wong Chuan How, PA to YB Ronnie Liu. According to reports in Chinese newspapers, Mr. Wong received request for evidence from MACC. He duly prepared the relevant documents and waited at his service centre yesterday (Friday).

MACC officers arrive at 9am (bravo, a bunch of motivated civil servants for a change). 5 officers (a number considered necessary in MACC's SOP to confront one 50 year old man, I suppose?) went up to the office and requested Mr. Wong to follow them back to Putrajaya. Mr. Wong decided to follow Selangor Menteri Besar's instruction to get his lawyer to accompany him to the MACC office and in this case, it was YB Cha Kee Chin, ADUN for Bukit Kepayang.

In YB Cha's words, "Wong was very co-operative, had all the documents prepared and waited 'respectfully' in the location and at the time as instructed by MACC."

Mr. Wong wanted to lodge a report at Sungai Pelek Police Station before going to Putrajaya. A bit tedious but given what happen to Mr. Teoh and MB's advice, it sounds prudent and orderly to me. Anyway the MACC officers agreed with this.

Unfortunately, when Mr. Wong walked out of the office, the 3 officers who waited outside his office proceeded to grab him and in the ensuing struggle, injured Mr. Wong.

Here are some photos that Utusan Malaysia missed out:



We all know the value of co-workers communicating properly at work but the above is just SNAFU (Situation Normal All F...... Up)

I suppose if you are in the wrong you apologise but what did MACC do? Instead of fruit basket and flowers to hospitals, they upgrade Mr. Wong's status from being a witness to a suspect as according to the Star today, "MACC director of investigation Datuk Mohd Shukri Abdull confirmed Mr. Wong's arrest".

Er...pardon my ignorance, a suspect would run when he sees the law, and not prepare evidence to incriminate himself, right?


The third chap is a certain Dr. Khairul. He is so certain and helpful in offering his professional judgement and conclusion that he voluntarily demonstrated in THAT inquiry how a sleepy Teoh Beng Hock could have opened up a window, wiggled and squeezed himself out out a window so that he could kill himself over RM2,400 on the day before his marriage registration.




However, the ever helpful doctor did acknowledge that there were no finger prints or shoe marks at the window where Teoh, who may have issues with committement as lamented in so many female magazine artles about men and committement, probably decided death was preferable to changing diapers and hearing the same woman nagging for decades to come.

I have 1 conclusion. I remember there was a talk about having a Witness Protection Act to be enacted. I suppose given the inconsistency with the 3 stories above, WPA is certain relevant and reliable. Cornerstone to a just society is built on many things such as sound laws being enacted, consistent, fair and swfit application of law as well as safety of witness who willingly come forward at their expense to make Malaysia a better and safer place to live in.

It is time we respect willing witnesses, guarantee them safety and dignity to work towards what Islam also advocates, Justice.