The interview today of the new Attorney-General Tan Sri Mohamed Apandi Ali in The Malaysian Insider on how Ali Tinju’s sedition charge had been dropped is neither convincing nor reflection of professionalism of the new Attorney-General and the police to bring to book those who openly flout the law to undermine national unity and harmony in the country.
Apandi said the sedition charge against Mohd Ali Baharom was dropped because the police could not come up with the audio recording of the alleged inflammatory remarks the ex-soldier made outside Low Yat Plaza in July.
Apandi said that without the evidence, he was unable to pursue the case.
He said:
“The actual recording was not enough. It was only a few seconds… We missed the ‘seditious’ part.
“They (the police) couldn’t find it. It wasn’t forthcoming. I told them, ‘this isn’t enough, go find more’. They said, ‘cannot find’. So that put an end to it.”
This is totally unsatisfactory and unacceptable, and if I had not been suspended from Parliament for six months, I would have spoken in the committee stage of next year’s budget for the Prime Minister’s Department to censure Apandi for his failure to uphold law and order as the new Attorney-General.
The Malaysian public are not interested in the game of “passing-the-buck” between the police and the AG’s chambers as to who was responsible for the shabby leg work as to result in the inability of the Attorney-General to prosecute Ali Tinju for sedition.
What did Ali Tinju say in inciting the crowd in Low Yat in Bukit Bintang in Kuala Lumpur in July?
This was what Ali was alleged to have said:
“Okay, we want justice. This is the dignity of Malays, not because one Chinese boy attacked many Malays. This is Malay land. Unite, and attack the DAP Chinese who are rude.”
The decision to drop the sedition case against Tinju Ali had sparked a nation-wide outcry as it highlighted the double standards and selective prosecution and persecution of the authorities concerned.
As Apandi has said that the police could not come up with the audio recording of Tinju Ali’s alleged inflammatory remarks outside Low Yat Plaza in July, I call on the public to help the police and AG to produce evidence of Ali Tinju’s speech in the Low Yat riots.
Members of the public who have such evidence can either hand them directly to the police or through the DAP MP for Segambut Lim Lip Eng, who has agreed to perform the public service to receive such evidence from the public and to hand them over to the police.
[Speech by DAP Parliamentary Leader and MP for Gelang Patah Lim Kit Siang at the DAP “Solidarity with Lim Kit Siang and Mana RM2.6 billion?” ceramah kopitiam in Tuaran on Thursday, 12th November 2016 at 12 noon]