Police have completed their investigations into the allegation that former chief justice Eusoff Chin pressured a now-retired High Court judge to drop a politically sensitive case, Minister in Prime Minister's Department Dr Rais Yatim said today.

He, however, refused to reveal the results of the investigation, adding that it was for the public prosecutor to peruse it for further action.

"I am not at liberty to disclose the contents of the investigation. The public prosecutor has to peruse it and determine the possible or non-possible courses of action.

"But I can say that the investigation is complete," he told reporters after paying a visit to the Judicial and Legal Training Centre (Ilkap) at Wisma Sime Darby in Kuala Lumpur this evening.

Recently retired High Court judge Muhammad Kamil sparked a furore last month when he said he had been ordered by a superior in 1999 to drop a case alleging electoral fraud in Sabah.

Eusoff later admitted telephoning Muhammad Kamil but denied he had told him to strike out the petitions of two candidates who were defeated in the state elections.

Eusoff said he had called merely to direct the judge to 'speed up the case' and described this as normal practice.

DNA profiles

On a another matter, Rais said that he would like to see judges and magistrates being sent for courses overseas soon.

At the moment he said, although judges were sent to participate in international conferences, the idea of attending courses would allow them to 'pursue a deeper understanding of certain areas of the law'.

"But that would mean taking them away from their judicial work. The Chief Justice has to accommodate the mechanism on how to replace them," he said adding the government would assist the judiciary in terms of funding for the proposal.

Rais also revealed that the government was looking into the possibility of amending the Registration of Criminals Act to allow the inclusion of DNA profiles in order to assist police in their investigations.

"I have informed the Cabinet on the need of these profiles to be included in the Act. Otherwise, without it, our criminal database will be incomplete.

"As you can see, the spate of crimes happening now could also persuade us into amending this Act as soon as possible," he said.

Scientific manner

Rais said the DNA profiles would be taken from criminals and those suspected of committing crimes.

"All prisoner profiles now should be reduced to DNA profiles taken from their hair, blood, nails, skin fibres, and so on.

"But this needs to be carefully collated in a scientific and authoritative manner. It cannot be done haphazardly," said Rais.

At the moment, the Registration of Criminals Act only has the thumb prints and photographs of criminals besides personal details.