By CHELSEA L.Y. NG, CECIL FUNG and LISA GOH
KUALA LUMPUR: The Royal Commission of Inquiry into the V.K. Lingam video clip was left wondering as to how the man in the clip knew “official secrets” privy only to the Prime Minister, Chief Justice and Chief Secretary to the Government.
Commissioner Datuk Mahadev Shankar pointed out during the testimony of former Chief Secretary to the Government Tan Sri Samsudin Osman that the “man in the video” knew the details of a letter sent by the then Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamed to the then Chief Justice Tun Mohamed Dzaiddin Abdullah regarding the nominations of High Court judges.
Samsudin, the sixth witness in the inquiry, was testifying on the correspondence in late 2001 between himself, Dr
Mahathir and Dzaiddin on a list of proposed candidates for the appointments.
These correspondence, he said, were official secrets that even ministers and deputy ministers had no access to.
In his testimony, Samsudin said the names of two lawyers originally proposed by Dzaiddin were dropped along the way.
Mahadev, who clarified with the witness on the date of this omission, pointed out that the man having the telephone conversation in the controversial video clip already knew about the matter 15 days later.
According to the transcript, the man in the video clip said in a telephone conversation:
“Then, there is a letter. It ... according to Tengku, I'm going to see him tomorrow, there is a letter sent to ... ah ... CJ ... ah I mean to Tan Sri Dzaiddin that Datuk Heliliah, Datuk Ali ... and Datuk Ramly Datuk Ramly and Datuk Maarop be made judges, ... and aa ... he rejected ah ... that Dr Andrew Chew and apa itu Zainudin Ismail lah because Zainudin Ismail who condemned your appointment and Tan Sri Mohtar's appointment.”
Mahadev: By Dec 5 (2001), the rejection of the two names (Dr Andrew Chew Peng Hui and Zainudin Ismail) were already an established fact. The event had already taken place and the only people who knew were the parties to the correspondence?
Samsudin: Yes.
Mahadev: Allegedly on Dec 20, 2001, according to the video clip, Dr Andrew Chew and Zainudin Ismail had been rejected. How did he (the man in the video) come to know about it?
Samsudin: I honestly don’t know. But I assure you whatever in the Cabinet we guard very closely. Security there is very, very tight.
Mahadev: If it is so tight, how it is that somebody can mention in the video clip something so confidential?
Samsudin: I’m puzzled too.
Mahadev: If he knows this, he might know a lot of other things too.
Samsudin: I don’t know. That’s the simple answer.
Mahadev: You can’t speculate?
Samsudin: I don’t even know this gentleman.
Earlier, Samsudin testified that Dzaiddin wrote to Dr Mahathir in October 2001 regarding the proposal to appoint five individuals as High Court judges.
He said Dr Mahathir forwarded the list – comprising the names of then Solicitor-General Datuk Heliliah Mohd Yusof, judicial commissioners Datuk Ramly Ali and Datuk Ahmad Maarop, and lawyers Dr Chew and Zainudin – to him to ask for his opinion.
“I asked the Attorney-General for input on the first three names. I also noticed that several judicial commissioners had been appointed at the same time as the proposed two.
“So I forwarded the names of these judicial commissioners together with the original list back to the Prime Minister for him to decide,” he said.
Samsudin said Dr Mahathir then wrote to Dzaiddin on Dec 5, 2001 and consented to the candidacy of Heliliah, Ramly and Ahmad.
“He also proposed to the Chief Justice for two more candidates to be selected from the list of five serving as judicial commissioners,” he said.
When commissioner Tan Sri Steve Shim asked why Dr Chew and Zainudin’s names were dropped, Samsudin replied that he did not know the reason.
The witness then said that Dzaiddin subsequently wrote to Dr Mahathir on Jan 11, 2002 to thank him for consenting to the appointment of the first three names he had proposed.
He said the Chief Justice also asked the Prime Minister to reconsider the two lawyers.
“But in a letter dated January 2002, the Prime Minister chose to nominate Datuk Sulaiman Daud and (Datuk) V.T. Singam for the appointments and refused the other two lawyers’ names,” he said.
Samsudin, who said he did not know Lingam, added that he had only seen the segment of the video clip shown on television.
He said he knew business tycoon Tan Sri Vincent Tan as he often met people from the private sector in the course of his work.
As for Datuk Seri Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor, Samsudin, who is now Putrajaya Corporation president, said he knew him because he had been a Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department before becoming a minister.
“I interact with him a lot nowadays because he is the Putrajaya MP and Tourism Minister,” he said.
Too many or too little secret.. I think it doesnt really matter by this hour !
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