Seventeen people, including three opposition leaders, were today charged with illegal assembly at the Kuala Lumpur Sessions Court in connection with the Nov 10 mass rally organised by polls reform group Bersih.

The trio - PKR’s Tian Chua, N Gobalakrishnan and PAS vice-chief Mohamad Sabu - were charged a day ahead of another mass rally planned by Bersih outside the Parliament tomorrow.

The rally has since been banned by the government in the latest series of crackdown on public rallies.

In addition to the unlawful assembly charge under Section 143 of the Penal Code, all of the 17 - except for Chua and Mohamad - also faced a second charge of disobeying a police order to disperse under Section 145 of the same code.

They also faced two alternative charges under the Police Act.

All of the 17 pleaded not guilty before Sessions Judge Rozana Ali Yusoff.

The judge granted bail between RM1,000 and RM5,000 to the accused persons despite fierce objection from attorney-general Abdul Gani Patail who personally led the prosecution. Hearing dates were fixed from Feb 11 to 13 next year.

Chua and Mohamad, who were arrested yesterday in Johor Baru and Ipoh respectively, were given bail at RM5,000 with one surety each while Gobalakrishnan was given bail at RM3,000.

Apart from the three politicians, the rest who were charged were mostly PAS’ marshal unit members who were tasked to control traffic during the rally. They turned up in court today in their uniform - a beret and a red t-shirt.

‘Highly speculative’ argument

In a lengthy argument on bail, AG Abdul Gani among others cited a news published by PAS’ organ Harakahdaily on Bersih’s planned rally tomorrow to support his argument as to why the group should not be granted bail.

“This shows the rally by Bersih will continue on, so the offence will continue. There is no question about it,” the country’s top prosecutor told a packed court, adding that he “strongly object” to bail for the 17.

Justice Rozana however sought several clarifications on this point raised by Abdul Gani such as how the latter was certain that the rally was to proceed and the accused will participate in it.

To this, Abdul Gani said his team obtained the information from Harakahdaily together with reports from the police.

Lawyer Ranjit Singh, from the defence team, however criticised the AG’s argument as “highly speculative” as there was no evidence to substantiate the point.

“This is also the first time that the AG relies on a report from Harakahdaily . Is he suggesting that everything in Harakah is true?” said Ranjit in jest.

Ranjit also lambasted the prosecution’s objection to bail as amounting to invoking the notorious Internal Security Act (ISA), which allows for detention without trial, in a different from.

“If bail is not granted, it will tantamount to preventive detention. This is the ISA through the backdoor. They will be incarcerated for years just to prevent them from carrying on further rally,” argued the defence lawyer.

Another defence lawyer, GK Ganesan, argued the AG should not use tomorrow’s rally and the ‘public interest’ as the grounds in objecting bail.

“There is no need for the court to punish (the accused) for something that will happen tomorrow. If they break the law, the court will act accordingly,” he noted.

On public interest, Ganesan drew chuckles from court by saying: “If there are 10,000 people going to Parliament tomorrow, I don’t think KLCC’s business will be affected or any international flight will be cancelled. The inconvenience will be because there were police roadblocks everywhere.”

Judge’s reminder

After considering the arguments from both parties, Justice Rozana eventually upheld the defence’s argument but advised the group not to commit the same alleged offence in future.

“I use my discretionary power to grant bail since most of the accused are first-time offenders, except for one or two persons. But you are reminded that if you are arrested again, the bail may be revoked,” she said.

Abdul Gani interjected at this juncture and said he will make application to revoke the bail given to the 17, should they be arrested for illegal assembly again.

The court was finally adjourned at about 7pm after a two-and-a-half hour proceeding.

As soon as the court adjourned, the 100-odd Bersih leaders and supporters - majority of whom were from PAS - which filled the courtroom chanted ‘ Allahuakhbar ’ (God is great) a few times.

Among those who were present at the hearing included PAS leaders Kamaruddin Jaffar, Salahuddin Ayub, Dr Hatta Ramli, Dr Syed Azman Syed Ahmad Nawawi, DAP’s M Kula Segaran, Chong Chieng Jen, Ronnie Liu and PKR’s William Leong.

The accused were represented by a large team of defence lawyers that also included Hanipa Maidin and Rajpal Singh. Abdul Gani was assisted by DPPs Ishak Yusoff and Allan Suman Pillai.

The court’s decision to release the 17 accused on bail came as a second blow for Abdul Gani today after a similar decision was made by another Sessions Court earlier in the case that involved nine people - including five lawyers - arrested at the Human Rights Day Festival yesterday.

The Kuala Lumpur court complex was abuzz since this morning when about 200 politicians, lawyers and supporters for the two groups charged today turned up to support them as early as 7.30am.