Darmouth College Hanover – one of the smaller US Ivy leaque tertiary institutions, the one writing the report for it were reportedly Prof. Lorenzo Torresani who received an Outstanding Faculty Reviewer Award from the IEEE Computer Society Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR) and Professor Hany Farid, Dartmouth’s Computer Scientist, supposedly a pioneer in the field of digital forensics, who confirmed on the photograph of accused John F. Kennedy assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald in a backyard setting holding a rifle in one hand and Marxist newspapers in the other, as authentic.

Which is why the Opposition fell into the trap by clamouring for the trio to be charged for displaying pornography. This is exactly what they want – a public forum- to obliquely by way of broadside inflict political damage by US expert opinion. (Charge was delayed – as it would take time for Dartmouth to be commissioned and report on their forensics). Some time back I said in this blog the Opposition head should prepare & get his own forensic experts to show the video as not authentic. He would now have to do it anyway if he wants to rebut the US expert testimonies.

The system and analysis for 99.9% is so far not revealed but only based on what the Datuk T’s lawyer said it said. We believe that which we like to believe and disbelieve that which we don’t like to believe. Is anyone really interested in the truth unaffected by political inclination and considerations? No doubt if professors at Dartmouth have otherwise verified that the sex video is fake, is it conceivable anyone opposed to the BN regime would question the professors’ credentials even before the exact contents of their report is known or understood? 99.9% unlikely!

Here in Datuk T’s trial, Anwar was not the accused. He was therefore not in position to rebut much less call his own experts to engage against Dartmouth’s professors commissioned by Datuk T’s side. The adversarial element – necessary to winnow grain from chaff- and an important ingredient in the Court’s process to legitimize the truth is not present in Datuk T’s trial, and yet what happens in that court is used to (obliquely) and ‘belakang’ legitimize the accusations against Anwar.

This is clearly crafty and unfair. But who is interested in fairness? They are not interested in convincing so much the non Malays than the PKR’s and PAS’s Malay supporters against Anwar.

Their problem is they and the institutions have lost credibility to legitimise what is true or not true. If people were opposed to the ruling govt they just won’t believe what they don’t like to believe. They won’t believe it even if the S’pore govt which they normally praise were to confirm it! To convince them otherwise the person accused of sexual immorality must either voluntarily admit it or is otherwise is caught with pants down in the public for all to bear eye witness!