A Sad Day for Lawyer Rosli Dahlan when the Justice was blind

I had a lunch appointment with my young friend, Lawyer Rosli Dahlan yesterday. There was a lot that I wanted to catch up with him. I have not seen him for a while to the point that I was beginning to believe what most people were saying that he was avoiding me. So, I was very happy when he agreed to meet up for lunch.

Then, at 12 noon, Rosli texted me to say he was in court and would try to see me after he finished. I waited until past lunch time and then finished my meal alone, but he still did not turn up. I texted him several times but he did not reply. I felt a bit annoyed and rather disturbed that my young friend had stood me up.

I called some friends and was told that Rosli was in court, not to conduct a case for his clients, but to attend to his own case. I was told that this was his RM 50 million suit against several officers of the MACC, the A-G Chambers, the Government and the media who had conspired to fix him up in 2007. I was perplexed why he did not tell me about this case as I would have attended court with him.

Back to 2007

My readers would remember that in 2007, Rosli Dahlan acted for Dato Ramli Yusuff and the Commercial Crimes Investigations Dept (CCID) when AG Gani Patail abdicated his constitutional duties by refusing to act for the CCID in the case against an underworld operator, Goh Cheng Poh @ Tengku Goh. Apparently, this criminal had explicitly named former IGP Musa Hassan in various court papers and affidavits. Eventually the criminal got scot free and six junior policemen, Rosli and Dato Ramli got charged.

[rosli dahlan 2007]

The Non-Existent RM 27 Million Cop

To discredit Rosli who prepared various court papers for Dato Ramli and the CCID, Rosli was fixed up in a most dramatic fashion which befits a suspense thriller movie. For months, the MACC leaked to the press that Dato Ramli was the “RM 27 Million Cop” and that it was hidden in the account of a lawyer. Then, in the holy month of Ramadan of 2007, the MACC agents stormed Rosli’s office, humiliated and shouted at Rosli in front of all his employees, then brutally handcuffed him so tightly until his wrists swelled and split his skin that he bled. The MACC then threw Rosli into the MACC underground cell, refused him bail and deliberately held him overnight just to teach him a lesson.
[macc handcuff]

In the month of Ramadan of 2007, the MACC stormed Rosli’s office, humiliated and shouted at him in front of all his employees, then brutally handcuffed him so tightly until his wrists swelled and split his skin that he bled

The next day, just one day before Aidil Fitri, the MACC paraded Rosli along the court corridors like a circus freak and charged him in a most sensational fashion to leave a permanent impression that this was the lawyer who hid RM 27 Million. That story fizzled out immediately when it was shown there never was that money and neither Rosli nor Dato Ramli was ever charged for any illegal asset.

I have been writing about this case so that the public would know of this brutal display of power. I wanted the public to be conscious that nobody is safe if all these can happen to a senior Muslim lawyer with an unblemished track record during his period of fasting. And all that happened to Rosli just because he acted for former CCID Director, Dato Ramli Yusuff who, at that time, was the target for career elimination by Musa Hassan, A-G Gani Patail and the MACC. The rest is history.
[ag-and-igp]

The Infamous Conspirators

Since then, the six junior Policemen, Rosli and Dato Ramli have all been acquitted. The various courts have also pronounced damning judgments against those who fixed Dato Ramli and Rosli especially former IGP Musa Hassan and DPP Kevin Morais. On the day, he was acquitted, I wrote that Rosli referred to those who did all these cruel things to him as “the Rogues in Government” and vowed to hold them accountable so that no one else would suffer the things that he had suffered.

When Rosli filed his Statement of Claim, he gave explicit description of the various parts of the conspiracy including the part involving a Bank Negara officer who had colluded with the A-G and the MACC to conduct illegal financial searches on him. Rosli only knew the secret things they did when the banks started withdrawing his banking facilities, cancelled his credit cards and refused to do business with him. To a professional and those in the business world, this can be devastating. This was a death call that can end a professional’s business and livelihood.

That was what happened to Rosli and so he sued all of them, including the Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) officer who caused the illegal search. Since BNM denied being involved in the conspiracy, Rosli offered to withdraw his suit against that BNM officer if BNM would send a letter to the banks to clarify that Rosli was never under investigations by BNM. This seemed reasonable enough, but BNM refused to do that implying they had something to hide.

It was clear to me that all Rosli wanted was accountability and to get to the bottom of the conspiracy in order to put a stop to all these shenanigans by these rogues in the corridors of power. On April 15, 2008, the powerful Utusan Malaysia even admitted to their wrongdoings and published an unqualified public apology in the following words: