We
know from the Suhakam inquiry into the kidnapping of Amri, for
instance, that his wife, Norhayati Ariffin, had claimed that her husband
was taken by the Special Branch.
It
was because this was relayed to her by Perlis Special Branch officer
Shamzaini Mohd Daud, who later denied revealing any such information.
However,
“…the panel accepted Norhayati’s version of events as they had found
the police officer’s testimony to be ‘incongruous’ and ‘full of
inconsistencies’.”
Keep in mind that the Suhakam found that not
only were the two kidnappings similar, but the tradecraft displayed in
both kidnappings were nearly identical.
So, what we can surmise is
this was a professional removal, which is a far cry from how the state
security apparatus treated these two cases of kidnappings.
Furthermore,
Suhakam noted that a Special Branch asset, Saiful Bahari Abdul Aziz,
whose car was present in both cases, has persistently refused to
testify.
But wait. The task force created during the Pakatan
Harapan regime led by former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad was also
a troubling read.
It’s because, as reported in the press, not
only was Saiful a person of interest who needed to be questioned, but 10
other people attended a meeting in October, a month before Amri’s
disappearance, which included “Perlis state mufti Mohd Asri Zainul
Abidin and several police officers.”
The fact that both men were under observation by the Selangor and Perlis state religious boards should tell us something about these kidnappings.
Keep
in mind that the state security apparatus had attempted to paint Koh’s
kidnapping as related to a 2017 shootout in Kedah, which the panel
refused to accept because – “they had found testimonies on this
operation from the police and former inspector-general of police Khalid
Abu Bakar to be distorted, illogical, and ‘full of inconsistencies and
material contradictions’.”
Citizens of this country were kidnapped
in a paramilitary style, and all circumstantial evidence points to the
connivance of the state.
At this point, I am less interested in why Koh and Amri were kidnapped, but I am keen to know who ordered it.
While
the former Umno state may be complicit in covering these crimes, what
we have witnessed so far is that because the country was run by an
incompetent kleptocrat, there have been factions within the government
who may have been operating without supervision.
This is what
happens when the machinery of government is used to cover up the alleged
crimes of their political masters, and nobody is interested in minding
the house.
Learning from GISBH scandal
What
has the GISBH scandal taught us? It showed us that the state security
apparatus, the religious bureaucracy and the political class, for
whatever reasons, turned a blind eye or were wilfully ignorant of crimes
and abuse going on in a big Muslim enterprise.
Now, you can
either believe that these institutions were staggeringly incompetent (do
not get me wrong, I could make a case for that) or they are elements
within these organisations which were sympathetic to GISBH.
And we have to apply the same kind of thinking to the disappearance of Koh and Amri.
Who had the power (if this allegation is true) to order a tactical squad to kidnap Malaysians for whatever reasons?
Who
had the authority to issue such commands, and who felt secure enough
that their crime would go unsanctioned by any elected government?
And
who had the political influence to concoct such a manoeuvre that
bypassed the traditional state security apparatus and mete out whatever
fate befell these people?
Whoever these people are, they are
confident that the narratives of the state security apparatus would
shield them from whatever repercussions or sanctions of the Madani
regime.
And so far, they are right.
