On the first visit on Day 3 of Dato Seri Anwar Ibrahim's imprisonment, lawyer and PKR MP, Sivarasa gave a statement that Anwar refused to seek for royal pardon.
That was the same day Anwar's family attempted to deceive the public that they visited Anwar before the 14 days regulation prison to claim he was suffering from back pain due to the thin pillow. Then came ridiculous stories of mosquito bites, losing weight and maybe later arsenic poisoning and HIV injection.
The dateline for Anwar to seek pardon is today. Failing which, his Permatang Pauh parliamentary seat will be announced vacant for a by-election.
Malaysiakini 11:30 AM reportred PKR Secretary General, Rafizi Ramli dismissed such talk of Anwar seeking royal pardon.
However, by the evening, things changed. Malaysiakini 4:33 PM reported Anwar's family had delivered a letter to the Istana Besar to seek for royal pardon.
There is still the question whether the letter is genuine and not pre-signed since no member of the family can visit till after 14 days of imprisonment. However, the implication of the petition to seek royal pardon is that Anwar finally admitted guilt.
The Speaker of the Parliament has acknowledged receipt of the petition.
It means the Permatang Pauh seat will not be announced vacant till the process of seeking royal pardon is completed. Below is the process:
Attorney General, Tan Sri Gani Patail and Prime Minister Dato Najib are member of the Pardon Board.
It would be a political suicide should they agree for a pardon because the alleged effort by former Prime Minister Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi to "assist" his release contributed to him losing his premiership. It will affirm speculation that there is a deal made between Anwar and Najib.
Gani is due for retirement. Although he has announced he will not wait a second longer to retire, he has been lobbying through few known channels for another two more years.
For this Johorean, he has done enough to lose Pulau Batu Putih to Singapore. Hope the Johor royalty, state and people express their displeasure openly to halt any such attempt to maintain him. There are available more capable, professional and decisive replacements available.
Sirul self confessed?
Yesterday, PAS MP for Pokok Sena attempted to pull a stunt to magnify speculation surrounding the convicted Altantunya murderer, Sirul who had ran off to Australia.
He scheduled a teleconference with Sirul at the PAS headquarter for 11:30 AM. The press conference was supposed as claim by opposition who had viraled past years foreign news clipping that speculated involvement of Dato Najib in the corruption surrounding the murder of mongolian call girl Altantunya.
Australian newspaper, most likely owned by Rupert Murdoch, made the story current and Asia Sentinel recycled their past years of debunked stories on Scorpene purchase [read here].
One local vernacular paper, Sinar Harian reported bad boy Malaysiakini's report that Sirul allegedly said he had acted at the instruction of a superior but no source was mentioned.
The live press conference was supposed to be held on Saturday morning but nothing happened. That lead saw pro-UMNO bloggers and facebooker posing difficult legal issues for Sirul to anwer.
When it was Mahfuz Omar that organised the PC yesterday and likely to be the champion of the issue, blogger The Unspinners [read here] wrote that there is no credibility to anything raised by Mahfuz and the PC will turn out to be an idiotic stunt.
True enough, Mahfuz could not communicate with Sirul as he made 15 attempts to get connected. He made up excuse and showed his claimed SMS to Sirul. The Star even tried to spin a face saving report.
The fact to the matter is Sirul is under Immigration detention thus he is under no condition to neither get clearance to call back home or could be in possession of a handphone.
Mentioned in The Unspinners and Bigdogdotcom [read here] that should it be true Sirul told Malaysiakini he was carrying out the orders of his superior, then it means he confessed to the murder. The implication is that Australia have no choice but not give asylum to self-confessed murderers. Sirul could likely get sent away to Papua New Guinea.
Lucky for Sirul that the land founded for convict made a clarification:
The runaway convicted murderer can stay on in Australia for the time being. Najib will have the last laugh on those that ridicule his "Nonsense!" remark.
Knowing Mahfuz, he would not have done such a stunt if not advised by someone. He is one MP that was never taken and should never be taken seriously by anyone except the Anwarinas faction in PAS. They use to make him the Vice President of PAS. He won Pokok Sena by cutting an under-handed deal with UMNO Division head, Dato Ahmad Lebai Sudin.
Sirul is useful for the opposition to recycle the Altantunya death into a new spin to deceive the think-their-clever new Gen Y voters but are actually naive. It has to be an absolute idiot to put this ex-policeman in such a predicament.
Wonder who the idiot that advised Mahfuz.