12 October 1998

Tan Sri,

Re: PR lwn Nallakaruppan a/l Solaimalai
KL High Court Criminal Trial No: 45-40-98

At the very outset let me apologize for writing this letter in English. I would under normal circumstances have arranged for my staff to translate it into Bahasa but there are matters that I am about to set out that for the moment I feel are best left on a p&c basis. Hence the need to keep the letter away from my staff. I have even taken the precaution of hand-delivering this letter myself.

You will recollect that I wrote to you on 1 October 1998 on the above matter citing the recent prosecution of Samsuri Welch Abdullah under the Arms Act 1960 as a comparative basis for you to amend the charge against Nallakaruppan from the Internal Security Act 1960 to one under the Arms Act 1960. I had copied that letter to Dato Gani Patail. I had expected a response from your office but instead, as in the case of my first letter dated 17 August 1998, I had a call from Dato Gani Patail on 2 October 1998 asking to see me on a very urgent basis. Both Mr Balwant Singh Sidhu and I saw him at 3.20 p.m. on 2 October 1998. The date & time of his visit is recorded in the police log book maintained outside Dato Gani's office on the 17th floor of Bangunan Bank Rakyat.

I had gone to this meeting with the expectation that, on the basis of my Ist October letter, there would be some discussion about possible sections under the Arms Act 1960 with a view to an amendment of Nallakaruppan's present ISA charge. To my absolute horror and disappointment Dato Gani Patail used the meeting and the death sentence under Section 57 of the ISA as a bargaining tool to gather evidence against Dato Seri Anwar Ibrahim. He had with him the letter I had written to you and copied to him. He was waving the letter about and kept on saying repeatedly, "I am not impressed" and suggesting that
he would not be impressed with any plea to a charge under Arms Act but instead wanted more. This 'more' and it came across very loud and clear because Dato Gani laid it out in very clear and definite terms, was

1. That Nallakaruppan was now facing the death sentence,

2. That there were other charges also under the ISA that he could prefer against
Nallakarrupan but that if they [AG's chambers?] hanged him once under the present charge what need would there be to charge him for anything else.

3. That in exchange for a reduction of the present charge to one under the Arms Act he wanted Nallakaruppan to co-operate with them and to give information against Anwar Ibrahim, specifically on matters concerning several married women. Dato Gani kept changing the number of women and finally settled on five, three married and two unmarried.

4. That he would expect Nallakaruppan to testify against Anwar in respect of
these women.

I was shocked that Dato Gani even had the gall to make such a suggestion to me. He obviously does not know me. I do not approve of such extraction of evidence against ANYONE, not even, or should I say least of all, a beggar picked up off the streets. A man's life, or for that matter even his freedom, is not a tool for prosecution agencies to use as a bargaining chip. No jurisprudential system will condone such an act. It is blackmail and extortion of the highest culpability and my greatest disappointment is that a once independent agency that I worked with some 25 years ago and of which I have such satisfying memories has descended to such levels in the creation and collection of
evidence. To use the death threat as a means to the extortion of evidence that is otherwise not there [why else make such a demand?] is unforgivable and surely must in itself be a crime leave alone sin, of the greatest magnitude. Whether his means justify the end that he seeks are matters that Dato Gani will have to wrestle with within his own conscience.

I have agonized over this machinations of Dato Gani's for the last 10 days. I have known you for close to 26 years. I cannot imagine you condoning such an act. And so this third and final letter on this matter and my decision to let you know what transpired on the afternoon of 2 October 1998. How far into your Chambers the corruption has spread I cannot say but that you will have to stop it goes without saying.

Nallakaruppan does not deserve the charge under the ISA bearing in mind what I have set out above and what is tabulated below. The facts relating to the 125 bullets have been set out in my earlier two letters. In my second letter I mentioned the Samsuri Welch Abdullah charges. I have once researched into the Arms Act prosecutions by your Department over the last few years but because of the constraint of time have only been able to go back till 1993, a period well within your tenure as Attorney-General. I have chronologically listed out below all the cases reported in the local papers that I have been able to locate. All that is important at this juncture is to note that even in matters of far
greater magnitude you have chosen the Arms Act as the vehicle for your prosecutions.