MP SPEAKS On July 11, Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said he would present full statistics from a study on crime during the next sitting of Parliament, to justify the need to revive the Emergency Ordinance (EO), which would allow the police to place suspects under detention without trial for two years.

 

NONE He said: “I obtained statistics which were derived empirically that, in Selangor, 90 percent of organised crimes were carried out by ex-detainees who were released from Simpang Renggam where they were held under the EO. I will present the statistics and the study in the Dewan Rakyat (during) the September (sitting), to prove the need for the EO.”

 

When pressed again for statistics and evidence last week, Zahid continued to insist that he had the figures in hand but urged continued patience before he made these public.

 

He provided the excuse that media captains need to be properly “briefed” by the Home Ministry and police before the government can allow any disclosure of classified crime data involving former EO detainees.

 

Instead, it is now Attorney-General (AG) Abdul Gani Patail who has provided the concrete evidence that the minister was telling a cock and bull story to justify the reinstatement of EO-like laws.

 

NONE Gani (right) informed a forum by the Malaysian Crime Prevention Foundation yesterday that “even after the repeal of the EO in 2011, there was no evidence from the 1,567 investigation papers submitted that violent crimes were committed by former detainees”.

 

The AG didn’t even tried to mince his words to say that there was ‘only some’ or ‘very little’ evidence of former detainees committing these crimes.  He said “there was no evidence”.

 

Gani was unapologetic about saying that the police had relied on the EO to lock up suspected hardcore criminals, as they were simply "addicted to it".

Zahid must now own up to making up a fictitious claim about how 90 percent of organised crimes in Selangor today are being carried out by ex-EO detainees.

The claim had never held water in the first place. If the study had been concluded and he had the findings in hand, why would he need to wait two months before presenting the report to Parliament?

Heed PM’s advice

 

Reading into Zahid’s statement, one can only deduce that it is completely oxymoronic. If the ‘study’ exists, then these “criminals” would have been identified, arrested, investigated and possibly charged already.  

azlan But if they have been arrested and investigated - and there have been very few reports of such - then why is crime still rampant and why do the police still need the EO?

 

Even if Zahid’s allegation is true, it does not “prove the need for the EO”.  On the contrary, it only proves that the police force is totally incompetent.

Unlike Zahid who seems to have trouble coming up with concrete statistics, we have shown - using published police statistics - that the EO had been ineffective in fighting rising crime.

For example, the Malaysian crime index rose rapidly from 2003 to 2008, with the rate peaking by 34 percent from 2004 to 2007. During this period, the EO was readily available to the police and yet, crime was seemingly unstoppable.

Despite the repeal of the EO at the end of 2011, the police and Home Ministry had claimed victory in the fight against crime, stating that the crime index had declined by 7.6 percent in 2012.

Based on the official crime statistics presented by the police themselves, how can Zahid now claim that the cause of rising crime is almost entirely due to the repeal of the EO?

 

With the AG’s damning evidence, we call upon the home minister to heed the prime minister’s advice when he announced the repeal of the EO - that “now the police must train themselves how to look for evidence ... (and) charge (criminals) in court”.

TONY PUA is the DAP’s member of parliament for Petaling Jaya Utara.