Friday, September 3, 2010

Corruption cases: Why they just don't seem to stick?

Is there a serious flaw with the way corruption cases are being prosecuted? Are there anomalies in the law which make it technically easy for the accused persons to be let off the hook easily?

I raise these questions because it seems to me that far too many cases, especially high profile cases involving the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) are being thrown out of court. If the subordinate court finds an accused guilty, the superior court takes an opposite position.

The latest being the acquittal of former Ampang Jaya Municipal Council (MPAJ) enforcement director Capt (R) Abdul Kudus Ahmad and former Pahang State Exco member Datuk Omar Othman. I am not suggesting that both of them are guilty or that they should have been found guilty. But it is rather surprising that in the case of Abdul Kudus who was charged with 30 counts of corrupt practices, not even a single charge stuck!

Datuk Omar was acquitted after a six-year trial. He was charged with abusing his power to award two village road projects to a company he allegedly had interest in.

After six years of trial (and a lot of tax payers' money, including mine spent), he was released.

I think the number of high-profile corruption cases which ended up in acquittals in recent years are far too many for to me to list down here. Given the frequency of these cases being thrown out of court, I wonder what is MACC's actual success rate of convictions after all avenues of appeal are exhausted.

And a bigger wonder is whether the investigation methods used by the MACC are in fact effective.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

kita semua tahu sprm sama saja dgn bpr dulu

Anonymous said...

Hello Bro.

Sama le macam Tun Lee liong Sik.. Ini Semua wayang. Sebelum Pakatan rakyat ambil alih buat le le keputusan jadi bila tukar kerajaan senang takyah nak di tuduh 2x lagi.

Umno Lama