Lingam Tape – Nazri’s histrionics that he will ask Cabinet to provide protection for Lingam Tape makers after claiming that they are fully protected powerful argument why Royal Commission of Inquiry is urgently needed as  Abdullah government is not serious or sincere in wanting to restore public confidence in judiciary

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Media Statement 
by Lim Kit Siang  
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(Parliament, Wednesday) : Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz, is up to his histrionics again – yesterday claiming that he will ask the Cabinet today to provide protection for the people behind the recording of the Lingam Tape.

This was 48 hours after Nazri had declared “No Source, No Case”, castigated the people behind the Lingam Tape as liars if they dared not come forward to co-operate with the Haidar Inquiry Panel to determine the authenticity of the Lingam Tape on the ground that witnesses and whistleblowers are already fully protected under the various laws of the land, although he subsequently admitted that he had made a mistake when referring to the non-existent Witness Protection Act or Witness Protection Bill.

However, if various laws already provide protection to the maker or makers of the Lingam Tape, why is it necessary for Nazri to ask the Cabinet to provide protection for the people behind the Lingam Tape recording?

Furthermore, why ask the Lingam Tape makers to come forward to co-operate with the Haidar Panel when Deputy Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak had said that the Panel is not supposed to call witnesses and must rely on the Anti-Corruption Agency and the Police in their deliberations?

At least Nazri has one quality which has so far been absent from other Ministers, the humility - some will say the “temerity” - to admit that he was wrong, although it is not clear what is the wrong of wrongs which Nazri is admitting to, whether in mistakenly claiming that there is a Witness Protection Act or Bill which are non-existing, or mistakenly claiming that the various laws already provide adequate protection for the maker or makers of the Lingam Tape to enable them to surface publicly to give information to establish its authenticity.

However, if Nazri could be so wrong in many aspects about his claim that the law already provides full protection for witnesses or whistleblowers, how are Malaysians to be assured that Nazri could not be equally wrong with regard to his  earlier claim that the Chief Justice, Tun Ahmad Fairuz Sheikh Abdul Halim had allegedly denied that he was the person that senior lawyer V.K. Lingam was talking to in the now infamous 8-minute Lingam Tape on the perversion of the course of justice concerning the fixing of judicial appointments, court judgments and getting a Tan Sri award?

In fact, the long thunderous silence of Ahmad Fairuz in not personally making such a denial in the most public and unmistakable a manner for the past three weeks since the revelation of the Lingam Tape by Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim has reinforced public doubts about the authenticity of Nazri’s claim, now that Nazri has proven to be so mistake-prone in his various public statements and assertions.

What will Nazri have to say if Ahmad Fairuz should deny that he had ever made such a denial as claimed by the Minister or if the Chief Justice proved to be the person at the other end of the Lingam Tape conversation?

What is incontrovertible about Nazri’s histronics that he will ask Cabinet to provide protection for Lingam Tape makers after claiming that they are fully protected is that is has furnished a powerful argument why a Royal Commission of Inquiry is urgently needed as the Abdullah government is not serious or sincere in wanting to restore national and international confidence in the independence, integrity and meritocracy of the judiciary after an uninterrupted series of ravages in the past 19 years.

(10/10/2007)