'For people to just make untruthful statements without being charged is a dangerous precedent for Malaysian society, when laws are not respected and easily undermined.'

Bala admits signing false SD, dares AG to charge him

Vijay: In most murder mysteries, the police will be hard-pressed to find out whodunit, ultimately ascertaining, of course, that the butler did it. Here we have the butler, or in this case the private investigator, actually coming forward to admit to the crime of making a false statutory declaration.

Hercule Poirot notwithstanding, even amateur sleuths would know that no such admission is even required - when you make two obviously contradicting declarations, one of them must be false, and voila, an offence must have been committed.

But our attorney-general, in a burst of inexplicable generosity, has decided that private investigator P Balasubramaniam has committed no offence and thus does not need to be charged.

I wonder how AG Abdul Gani Patail will respond now that Bala has challenged him to charge him. Dare we hope that the AG will submit his resignation? There is no other recourse open to him. Be still, my beating heart.

RP to RIP: Balasubramaniam's request for a re-opening of his case file will not happen under an Umno-run Malaysia. This much is true. And as long as national issues are not translated into equal concern amongst rural and semi-rural voters, Umno will rule the roost.

Incidences such as Altantuya Shaariibuu, Teoh Beng Hock and A Kugan are but collateral damage in their desire to remain in power. Sadly, I think nothing much is going to change in this country, despite a large number of the online community and urban voters being anti-establishment and keen to call Putrajaya to account.

Power in Putrajaya, as it stands today, is more reliant on non-urban constituencies than it does with the latter. I feel very sorry for Altantuya, Teoh and Kugan. When will they ever get justice?

Black Mamba: Here we have a case of a lawbreaker who has admitted his wrongdoings and wants to be charged accordingly, but the smart and learned AG found nothing wrong in him making two contradictory statutory declarations and decides to close the file.

If this is the case, then our Malaysian laws must be a mockery for people to just frivolously make untruthful statements without being charged. This is a dangerous precedent for the Malaysian society when laws are not respected and easily undermined.

I say, arrest Bala and put him on trial unless there is more dirt not uncovered, which in any case can send shivers down the spine of the guilty ones.

CarL: The scheme of things that is taking place will continue to make PKR more and more disgusting to Malaysian voters, especially the majority who voted BN. Now there will be more in that majority.

For Bala to come out a few days after the charge was dropped, stay away from Malaysia and now saying he wants to come back, is clearly a well laid-out plan. He must also remember that during the trial of Abdul Razak Baginda and in the way the two cops were charged, he has perjured as well. So he has many charges to attend to.

There is a devil - a devil we don't know - who is giving him confidence to come out each time, especially when he said clearly in London in an interview that Razak Baginda is innocent . Here is a man gloating in his fame, and thinks that the devils will protect him, when they only wish to use him like they use everybody, even the dead.

The AG does not have to even respond to this. Bala wants to be charged, with certain ‘conditions', and wants to even direct the trial, call the witnesses he wants and will reveal things only on his terms.

How much of truth is there in this? Another ‘wayang' by the great Anwar Ibrahim to fall flat on his face? Raja Petra Kamarudin will have something to say soon.

Abasir: A citizen has declared to have committed an offence and the evidence is in the public domain for all to see and read. The AG decides to close the case after an 'investigation'. But the offender is urging the AG to charge him because clearly, one of the two contradictory SDs (statutory declarations) is patently false.

If anyone had defamed LKY (Lee Kuan Yew) in Singapore in a similar manner, he would have taken immediate legal action against all concerned to regain his reputation and remove the stain of suspicion for ever.

In the case of Najib, Nazim and Rosmah, the strategy they have adopted is to studiously avoid any form of court action. Mahathir Mohamad, who has also been accused of corruption, adopts the same tactic. While it may prevent the exposure of facts surrounding the damning allegations, their reputations or what's left of them, lies in tatters.

In the secular court of public opinion (which hardly matters in Islamic Malaysia) they stand accused and condemned of a heinous crime. Their deliberate and adamant refusal to charge their accusers speaks more about their involvement than any written judgement of a competent court.

Passing Cloud: Remember the time-honoured saying ‘Truth crushed to earth shall rise again'? How long more can the real murderers of Altantuya Shaariibuu, who was mercilessly C4ed to smithereens, and the government keep suppressing the seemingly mounting and overwhelming evidences pointing to the alleged murderers?

This case keeps unfolding even though the Minister in Prime Minister's Department Mohd Nazri Abdul Aziz recently announced the case was closed.

KayKay: The AG has prerogative powers to decide whether to bring proceedings against anyone. No one can force the AG to commence proceedings against anybody. If the AG commences proceedings and then later withdraws or drops the charges, no one can question him either. He doesn't have to give any reasons.

The AG cannot be going to court on the strength of a SD. He cannot either decide that someone should be charged for making a false SD. People draw up false SD all the time. If all these people were brought to court, then all the other cases would be swamped. Prosecution is as much a matter of punishment in the public interest, if not persecution, as much as public education.

In the case of this Bala character, how would the public interest be served by charging him for making a ‘false' SD? He brought this down upon himself by only issuing the second SD when he was promised RM5 million. Now, he's denying the second SD because he got only RM750,000. This makes us wonder why he issued the first SD.

Changeagent: PI Bala is being naughty again. Of course, the AG won't want to charge him. He wants the Altantuya case to go away for good, and never to be revisited again.

On the other hand, Rahimi Osman's about-turn on his original SD is a different kettle of fish altogether. The AG cannot wait to allow this into the Sodomy II trial to further implicate Anwar. The double standards practiced here are glaringly obvious.

Cala: From the look of the mass of information generated over the gruesome murder of Altantuya linked purportedly to PM and his wife over the commission payable to the deceased, is it not the duty of the AG to go for the culprits in order to uphold the little dignity that is left for him?

There are at least three ways to explain his lack of enthusiasm:

i) the guilty parties are his bosses (the dictum: after all the boss is always right)

ii) by activating the case is not in the interest of Umno-led BN coalition as it implies that the regime is accountable for this episode

iii) by prosecuting, or not prosecuting, makes little difference to the electorates as the majority will continue to vote BN in due to ‘high political information cost' (Downs, 1957, p 139).

To me, the third factor appears more plausible considering that many rural folks are (I assume) ignorant of what is going on.

Paul Warren: What this all means is that in Malaysia, statutory declarations are not worth the paper that it is written on. You can write any kind of fib on any Malaysian statutory declaration from now on.

Swipenter: So what are you going to do, AG Gani Patail? Let Bala mock you and pretend everything is fine. NFA (No Further Action)?

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