When did Malaysia’s police chiefs develop “egg-shell skull” paranoia

by Lim Kit Siang,

I had tweeted in Osaka yesterday:

“Police 2interrogate another DAP rep – Sel State Exco EanYongHianWah after Penang CM/DAP SG LimGuanEng. Sel CPO – what r u up to?”

In response, I got this snide remark from the Umno MP for Kota Belud, Rahman Dahlan in his retweet:

“Same old tactics LKS!”

This could mean many things but at present, I am only concerned about the Selangor Chief Police Officer, Datuk Khalid Abu Bakar, whom I had always thought as a solid and professional policeman, raising many questions.

Let me for the moment pose two:

Firstly, when did Malaysia’s police chiefs develop the “egg-shell skull” paranoia?

Secondly, would the police lodge a police report against Khalid for committing the offence of publishing “false news” under Printing Presses and Publications Act?

Any law student would have come across the eggshell skull rule, or the legal doctrine in tort and criminal law that holds a wrongdoer liable for all consequences resulting from his or her tort or crime leading to an injury to another person, even if the victim suffers an unusually high level of damage – even if a person had a skull as delicate as the shell of an egg.

Are Malaysians to believe that seasoned and toughened police chiefs in the country have suddenly developed egg-shell skulls that an unexceptional call by the DAP Selangor State Chairman and Selangor Exco member Ean Yong Hian Wah urging the police to cease their baseless investigation of Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng for sedition on his speech at the Pakatan Rakyat national convention on December 19 about the mysterious death of Teoh Beng Hock could have an “intimidating” effect on the police?

Is this one consequence of the KPI/NKRA mania of the Najib administration?

If police chiefs in Malaysia have developed such egg-shell skull paranoia, how can Malaysians have confidence that the police can roll back the tide of endemic crime in the country, which has got worse in the past nine months since Datuk Seri Najib Razak became Prime Minister despite all the empty propaganda of the Home Minister, Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein about the country becoming a safer country?

Secondly, when Khalid said that Hian Wah had “directed”: the police to cease its investigations of Penang Chief Minister, he had in fact committed the offence of publishing false news under the Printing Presses and Publications Act, for Hian Wah never issued such a “directive” to the police.

Would the Attorney-General Tan Sri Gani Patail believe that Hian Wah could have issued such a directive? Hian Wah has clearly denied have done so.

Would the police lodge a police report against the Selangor CPO for committing the offence of publishing false news in connection with Hian Wah’s statement, which is an even more serious offence that the one Khalid is accusing Hian Wah. If the police is not going to lodge such a police report against Khalid, why not?

These two and many other questions arising from the highly questionable and unprofessional actions of Khalid in the past few days are the reasons why I had raised the question in my tweet:

“Sel CPO – what r u up to?”

Can Khalid respond?