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Police May Charge Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim for False Arsening Poisoning Report

The newly appointed deputy inspector-general of police, Dato' Jamil Johori, wants to prosecute the jailed former deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, for his false police report that he has been poisoned. And his wife, Datin Seri Wan Azizah Wan Ismail. After all, the Prime Minister and deputy prime minister is sure He Who Must Be Destroyed At All Cost lied, he does not suffer from arsenic poisoning. The book must be thrown at any who lodge false police reports. Mind you, Dato' Jail intends to let Malaysians know that he and his force would not tolerate any one, be he disgraced deputy prime minister or opposition party membe, who lodges police reports that are false or lead police on false trails. Dato' Jamil even suggests the severe penalties that await Dato' Seri Anwar if the arsening poisoning report was false. "I cannot comment more", he says helpfully, "as investigation is in progress." If it was in progress, why did he come out to say what he did? Dato' Seri Anwar knows -- should know by now -- the dangers of false reports to police. I would not be uncharitable enough to suggest that the new kid on the block wants to ingratiate himself with the Prime Minister and the deputy prime minister who doubles up as home minister. He is too much of a professional to want to have to do that.

His import is clear: to bring the police back to its pre-Anwar neutrality and restore its battered, tattered image of thuggery and gangsterism to a law abiding force that one could look up to. He wants to go after wrong doers. If they happen to be opposition members, it is not, as the Prime Minister would say, because it targets them, but because the fellows have done wrong. How could the likes of the Prime Minister and his cabinet do wrong as the opposition is capable of? Even Dato' Jamil cannot forget the National Front's dominance in his life as a police officer. The speed with which the police reached its prima facie conclusion on Dato' Seri Anwar's possible false police report is impressive. But it raises a few niggardly if awkward questions. Since its normal investigations revealed Anwar's possible crime over the police report, the police would no doubt have completed its investigations on police reports alleging corrupt practice by the Prime Minister, finance minister Tun Daim Zainuddin, international trade and industry minister Datin Rafidah Aziz, Tan Sri Eric Chia and others.

The inspector-general of police or his deputy did not threaten him with the consequences of false police reports. I shall not be crass as to suggest it ignored them; the police would, you understand, do no such thing. Unless the police tell me otherwise, the reports have been thoroughly investigated. Does this mean these reports were true as the arsening report is not? That in the eyes of the police Anwar's allegations have sufficient merit to charge the named people in court? This is the natural inference to be drawn from Dato' Jamil's clear threat to charge Anwar in court. If the police are convinced Dato' Seri Anwar filed false reports on corrupt practices, why has not the police similarly threatened Dato' Seri Anwar? And it they are true, what is the police doing about it? Have they prepared the cause papers and sent it on to the Attorney-General's Chambers for action?

The police cannot have it both ways. It rushed into action to charge a policeman when a 29-year-old doctor was shot dead but stonewalled every attempt to investigate 640 deaths before his in a decade. The National Front depends heavily on the Chinese vote, so this messy affair should not be allowed to be an election issue. It threatens Dato' Seri Anwar for a false police report when it ignores every other more weighty police report filed with proof. Its desire to do the government's bidding in a political confrontation destroye its credibility, yet another institution of governance that bit the dust at the alter of political expediency. Dato' Jamil's police warning is yet another proof of that.

M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@mgg.pc.my