Saifuddin Nasution, PKR MP for Machang, said he was greatly relieved by yesterday’s High Court decision to award damages to 29 human rights activists and journalists detained by police in the immediate aftermath of Apcet II conference 13 years ago.

The court awarded damages of RM30,000 to each of those who sued the authorities for “wrongful detention" at the Second Asia Pacific Conference on East Timor (Apcet II) on Nov 9, 1996.

selambau pkr pc 040409 saifuddin nasution The decision is considered the second most important victory for rights activists since the award of RM2.5 million to an ISA detainee in late 2007 who had sued the government for wrongful detention.

Saifuddin, who is now PKR supreme council member and director of election strategy, was the ring leader of the Umno Youth band that barged into the Apcet II meeting held in a hotel in Kuala Lumpur.

The police waded in an hour later and rounded up all both foreign and local participants at the conference, including several journalists.

The former Umno Youth activist repented his behaviour by tendering a public apology and personally did so to Jose Ramos-Horta and Xanana Gusmao when the two East Timor freedom fighters visited Malaysia in 2001.

By then Saifuddin had morphed from Umno Youth firebrand to PKR stalwart, a transformation catalysed by the travails of Anwar Ibrahim, who was sacked from Umno and publicly disgraced by Dr Mahathir Mohamad in 1998.

Judge dismisses deputy minister’s culpability

Saifuddin was the star witness at the trial of the Apcet II plaintiffs.

He told the court he took orders from then deputy home minister, the late Megat Junid Megat Ayob, to disrupt the meeting and was told that the police would be on hand to help the Umno Youth cohort he was to lead.

“I apcet ii mob 231209 saifuddin nasution ’m immensely relieved that the court found in favour of the victims though it did not accept that part of my testimony about the deputy home minister’s culpability,” he told Malaysiakini over the phone from his constituency of Machang, Kelantan.

“Still, any vindication is welcome and I can now put this sorry episode of my past where it properly belongs, in the category under actions lamented and never to be repeated,” said Saifuddin.