Current Ag Should Take The Rap For Rosmah S Acquittal

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In defending the attorney-general’s (AG) decision not to pursue Rosmah Mansor's appeal over her RM7 million money laundering and tax evasion case, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim seemed to pin the blame on his predecessor, Dr Mahathir Mohamad, and former AG Tommy Thomas.
In trying his best to speak like a lawyer, Anwar argued the case was too weak as the foundation of the case was baseless, prompting the current AG Dusuki Mokhtar to review the case and make a decision to withdraw the appeal, which led to Rosmah’s acquittal.
It is common knowledge - at least among the criminal law practitioners - that the Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC) invariably claims it has been strictly adhering to the following tenet in launching a criminal prosecution, namely until and unless such a criminal prosecution would have a high chance of securing a conviction the prosecution agency in the AGC no criminal prosecution would be initiated against anybody.
Guided by such a credo, the AGC has been very slow in not pursuing any appeal once the decision to appeal is made. Thus, a trial judge may conclude that the prosecution has a relatively weak case, but the AGC will, in turn, vigorously challenge such a conclusion via the appeal mechanism.
Withdrawing the appeal - unless it is motivated by any non-legal consideration - is almost a no-go. Pointing a finger at a former AG in the previous government, which led to Rosmah’s appeal being withdrawn, with the greatest respect, is completely uncalled for and unbecoming of Anwar.
The AGC tried to hammer home that the decision to withdraw the appeal against Rosmah’s acquittal was due to several reasons, such as some of the witnesses needed to secure a conviction had passed away, and others had gone untraceable.
Rosmah MansorIf that was truly the reason, we have to accept the painful reality that no prosecution would be pursued if any material witnesses were either dead or untraceable.
For evidence to be accepted…
In law, evidence of dead or untraceable witnesses is considered hearsay, thus inadmissible. Realising this perennial problem in any legal system, almost all jurisdictions around the globe have provided alternative routes in ensuring that such evidence may be duly accepted by a court of law.
For instance, in Malaysia, we have Section 32 of the Evidence Act 1950 to cater to such a problem. Based on this important section, the prosecution may still use evidence of any dead or untraceable witness in proving its case and get rid of the scourge of hearsay evidence. This is too basic and elementary.
Anyway, those who are familiar with criminal trials must be fully aware of the case of Sunny Ang. In that case, the accused was charged with murdering his girlfriend despite the fact that her dead body was never found.
The core issue was whether the conviction could stand when the evidence was wholly circumstantial and no dead body was found.
Although the prosecution’s case in Ang’s case rested entirely on circumstantial evidence and the dead body was never recovered, the court had no problem in agreeing with the prosecution's submission that the totality of the facts proved formed a complete and unbroken chain that led irresistibly to the conclusion that Ang had intentionally caused her death.
PM Anwar IbrahimThe aforesaid case drives home this message: if the prosecution truly had a strong will and determination not to let Rosmah off the hook, it should have vigorously and aggressively pursued the appeal.
Politically speaking, by not pursuing the appeal, Anwar’s promise for reform rings hollow.
The recent Pakatan Harapan trouncing in the Sabah election seems to be meaningless in Anwar’s eyes. - Mkini
MOHAMED HANIPA MAIDIN is a former deputy law minister.
The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.

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