PETALING JAYA: A former law minister tonight questioned the decision of the authorities not to initiate a probe in the absence of a police report.
Zaid Ibrahim wondered if such a law existed.
“If the country is burning and no one lodges a report, then the police can’t do anything?,” he said on X, formerly Twitter.
Zaid said when he was charged for insulting the then prime minister in 2015, the report was not lodged by a member of the public.
Instead, he claimed, the federal police got a policeman to lodge the first report.
Zaid voiced his suspicion that the authorities’ recent decision not to initiate an investigation was because “the relevant subject matter or person involved was a high-ranking Umno leader”, while he was a nobody.
While Zaid did not identify the Umno leader, it is believed that he was referring to Umno Youth chief Dr Akmal Saleh.
Earlier today, Inspector-General of Police Razarudin Husain said no reports had been received regarding Akmal’s Facebook post which showed the latter wielding a sword.
He was responding to Senator Ti Lian Ker’s enquiry on why the Merlimau assemblyman had yet to be investigated for sedition.
Razarudin told FMT that according to standard procedure, the police would only initiate an investigation if a report was lodged.
On March 14, Akmal uploaded a photo of himself wielding a sword on a recent trip to Japan with the caption: “No matter what, we will not waver from our stance. Better to die standing than live kneeling.”
Zaid was hauled to court over an allegedly offensive blog post he made in 2015. He was charged with the intention to hurt the feelings of then prime minister Najib Razak.
He was acquitted by the court in January 2018.
