Society
Malaysia's "economic miracle" conceals many abuses - such as the farcical trial of a British journalist
Published 12 June 2000
Last year, Anwar Ibrahim, the former deputy prime minister of Malaysia, was given a six-year prison sentence for corruption. He was also charged with sodomy, punishable by up to 20 years' imprisonment. Amnesty International ridiculed the case as "a pretext to remove Anwar from further participation in public life" and declared him a prisoner of conscience. Human Rights Watch said the conviction was the latest of many legal scandals, in which the rule of law in Malaysia was used to silence and intimidate critics of the government of Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad.
The trial of Anwar Ibrahim was a black joke. The Malaysian police admitted coercion of witnesses; the inspector general of police was revealed to have viciously assaulted Anwar on the night of his arrest; two men convicted in relation to the sodomy charges said they pleaded guilty under duress. The trial disclosed a bitter, personal animosity between Mahathir and Anwar, which came to a head during the Asian economic crisis when Anwar reportedly opposed Mahathir's pet capital projects.
There are striking parallels with the case of David Chell, a British freelance journalist currently caught in the legal web in Malaysia. On 7 October 1998, Chell was arrested at Penang international airport where, claimed the police, he was carrying heroin in condoms. The case has received little publicity in Britain, even though Chell faces a mandatory death sentence and despite the evidence of perjury, omissions, cover-up and destruction of evidence in the prosecution case against him.
Moreover, Chell's lawyer is Karpal Singh, a brave and skilful champion of civil liberty and democracy who was, until last November, an MP in the small opposition to Mahathir's dominant United Malay National Organisation, and who has himself fallen victim to Malaysian "justice".
Karpal Singh was also Anwar Ibrahim's defence lawyer, and was charged with sedition after commenting in court that "people in high places . . . want to get rid of him [Anwar] . . . even to the extent of murder". More than 100 leading Malaysian lawyers, together with Amnesty, have protested the flouting of the principle of privilege during court proceedings. His own trial begins on 18 July.
Meanwhile, on 12 June, he will submit the final defence of David Chell, the judge having ignored the almost farcical behaviour of the prosecution witnesses and ruled a prima facie case against Chell. In Karpal Singh's view, there is no case to answer and Chell ought to be free.
In the witness box, the policeman who arrested Chell changed his story twice: first about how he came upon the drugs, then claiming that he found them by chance, rather than acting on a tip-off, as he had originally reported. He said he had recorded the details in his notebook which, when produced in court, had the relevant page torn out. During the trial, a vital witness, a policeman at Penang airport, was charged with extortion. There is no fingerprint evidence linking Chell to the heroin, even though police claimed he was concealing it on his body. Indeed, there appears to have been no real investigation by the police; Chell has not even met the officer in charge of investigating an alleged crime for which he could be hanged.
Chell, in his fifties, is the father of two children. He has worked as a journalist, psychiatric nurse and lecturer; he holds a double honours degree, and won a scholarship writing on the dangers of drugs. With his family, he lived in Sudan for three years, training nomadic people in basic medicine and healthcare, skills that were passed on to Africa's poorest. He documented this in a report for the World Health Organisation. His friend Norma Shaw, who has conducted the campaign for his release, describes the "very incongruity of such a highly intelligent man even contemplating such an enormously stupid act as he is accused of ".
Behind the facade of Mahathir's "economic tiger", there are many shadows. Dissent is controlled and criminalised. Freedom of assembly and expression are severely curtailed. Mass arrests are common. The Internal Security Act used against Anwar Ibrahim is a draconian catch-all. Other sedition and "anti-defamation" laws are frequently used to silence and frighten; even the United Nations special rapporteur for the independence of judges and lawyers, Param Cumarawarny, a Malaysian, was prosecuted. The trial of a women's activist, Irene Fernandez, is now in its fourth year. She has been charged with publishing "false news" in a report documenting ill-treatment and denial of medical care in camps holding the immigrant workers whose exploitation has underpinned much of the Malaysian "economic miracle".
The Blair government is a major arms supplier to Malaysia. Last September, CKN Westland struck a deal worth £100m for helicopters. Two frigates were delivered in October by Marconi Marine. It is in "riot control" that the British arms merchants play their most visible role, supplying riot shields, smoke canisters and armoured vehicles.
Last year, Robin Cook said the trial of Anwar Ibrahim gave "real cause for concern". He promised to raise it in Brussels. The Foreign Office has said nothing publicly about David Chell, except that it will consider contacting the Malaysian government should the blindingly obvious, the unfairness of his trial, be "proven". Chell's hearing on 12 June is crucial; then the whole hideous process of hanging a man, innocent until proven guilty, might begin. If there is a shred of "ethical dimension" left in Robin Cook, he will speak out now.
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