Two Charge And AG Said No Cover-up

A Kadir Jasin

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SUDDENLY I remember the early days of learning English in the Special Malay class at the Saint Michael’s School in Alor Star back in the late 1950’s. We then had a lesson called the Daily News.

In it, we had to write in short, simple sentences what we saw the day before. If we saw a duck, we would write:

“Yesterday I saw a duck. The duck was swimming in the paddy field. The duck liked to swim in the Paddy field. My mother had many ducks. Her ducks laid many eggs. My mother sold the eggs to the Chinaman.”

Note: Those good old days, it was perfectly all right to call a Chinese a “Chinaman”, a Malay a “Melayu” and an Indian a “Keling.” Keling incidentally refers to people who originated from the great Hindu Empire of Kalinga in India.

So today, I would like to write this posting in the Daily News style. But I’ll not be writing about ducks. I will write about people. Here goes my Daily News:


“Yesterday two men were taken to court. They were taken to court for stealing. They stole aircraft’s engines. They were accused of stealing two jet engines. The engines belonged to the Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF).


“One man is a sergeant. He is working for the RMAF. His name is N. Tharmendran. Tharmendran is 42 years old. He pleaded not guilty.


“The other man is K. Rajandran Prasad. Rajandran Prasad is 37 years old. He is a company director. He also claimed not guilty.


“Tharmendran and Rajandran Prasad stole the engines from the Kuala Lumpur RMAF Material Processing Shed. The engines is worth about RM100million.



The Accused: Tharmendram Nagarajah (left) and Rajandran Prasad. -- Courtesy of The Star Online.


“Attorney-General said there is no cover-up. Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail is the Attorney-General. People say there was a cover-up. They say there was a cover-up because only small people are charged.”


That’s the end of my Daily News. But I still think this a very confusing incident. If the case is not confusing, its handling is.


First the Menteri and the pegawai said only one engine was stolen. Then they said two. Still later they said other spares were also stolen.


Then they said 41 RMF people were sacked for the crime. One was brigadier-general. Then they said 20 were reinstated on appeal.


On Dec. 25, the RMAF issued a statement to debunk their claims. It said the 41 personnel, including a brigadier-general, were not sacked due to the theft of the engines. They were sacked for being incompetent and for poor performance.


The decision to sack them was taken before the engine theft was discovered.


So with this haphazard and sloppy handling by the Menteri and the pegawai, who can blame the people if they are suspicious and think there is a cover-up?