Balasubramaniam’s 2 contradictory SDs - the immediate concern

In the past 36 hours, the country has been convulsed by the two contradictory statutory declarations by private investigator P. Balasubramiam over the linking of Deputy Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak with the murdered Mongolian national Altantuya Shaariibuu.

A great debate has been going on since Balasubramaniam’s second SD yesterday contradicting his first SD made public on Thursday with such devastating effect as to whether the private investigator had committed the crime of perjury, liable under the Penal Code to an offence which carries a maximum of seven years’ jail.

I think this question is secondary. My immediate concern of the two contradictory SDs by Balasubramiam is not whether he had committed a criminal offence, but his personal safety and a new low in public confidence in the police and justice systems.

After the March 8 “political tsunami”, resulting in the unprecedented Barisan Nasional loss of two-thirds parliamentary majority, the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi assured Malaysians that he had finally heard their voices in the general election verdict and would seriously carry out long-delayed reforms in the institutions of government, especially in the three areas of judicial, police and anti-corruption reforms.

Apart from a lot of “hot air” however little has been achieved in the past four months, apart from ex-gratia payment to six judges who were victims of the 1988 judicial crisis and scandal – when the victims of the judicial darkness of the past two decades were not just the six judges but an entire generation of Malaysians who were denied their fundamental and constitutional right to independent and impartial justice.

This is why I had asked in Parliament what is the actual amount of the ex gratia payment paid to the six judges as Malaysians have the right to know as the money come from the public coffers. Somebody said the ex gratia payment is RM1.5 million each. I hope to get the answer during the Ministerial winding-up in the debate on the Ninth Malaysia Plan Mid-Term Review in Parliament next week.

With little to show in judicial, police and anti-corruption reforms, Balasubramaniam’s two contradictory SDs have served to highlight the institutional rot in our country plunging public confidence in the justice and police systems to a new nadir.

Balasubramaniam had said in his SD2 that he had made his SD1 under duress. In his SD1, he had alleged that he had signed his police statement in November 2006 under duress although the police had omitted all his information linking Najib to Altantuya because he had been in the police lock-up for seven days and just wanted to go home.

This was what Balasubramaniam said in his press conference on Thursday when releasing his SD1:

“If you have experienced being in a lock-up, definitely you will sign the statement. I have three children (to think about).

”I was arrested under (Section) 302 (for murder). What’s the reason? In the first place there was no reason for the police to put me in the lock-up. They can call me anytime to take a statement. I was the private investigator for Razak.”

Balasubramaniam was the very picture of being very relaxed and comfortable in his Thursday media conference when releasing his SD1, while he looked very strained and under great pressure in his SD2 press conference, where he did not say a single word.

It is not only Balasubramaniam who is under great test with his two contradictory SDs, but public confidence in the police and justice systems.

Lim Kit Siang