Although 27 Jan was a Sunday, a magistrate was brought into the lock-up (Pudu Jail). At 14:00hr, all the detainees were brought out from the cell to the front entrance.
As usual, many hardworking and righteous lawyers volunteered their service to be our legal defence team. Our defence was led by Amer Hamzah.
We were aware that our defence lawyers had a uphill task to get us out. The DPP’s mission was to remand us for extra days. The DPP communicated to our lawyers that their boss (presumably the AG himself) was adamant that remand must be extended for all. The DPP also rejected our lawyers’ pledge to release some detainees (senior citizens, women, sick, etc.) on compassionate ground.
The two sides began to cross sword in front of Magistrate Norazlin Othman at about 15:00hr. All of us 50 odd people were divided into batches for the remand hearing. Arul and several others were the first to be presented to the magistrate. After an hour of argument, the magistrate ruled that remand be extended for another day based on the ground of “security” and “public order”.
The remand hearing continued the whole afternoon. In all cases, the magistrate granted the extension of remand. This frustrated our defence lawyers. By 18:00hr, everyone including the magistrate and the DPP teams were exhausted.
However he DPP reiterated their stand to insist on extension of remand for all. Our defence lawyers consulted us but we decided to go on defending every case. This meant the hearing would go on until midnight. That we were prepare to do. After all, we had nothing to lose.
For that reason, some of us decided to do our own defence. Every individual would speak on his or her own behalf. Amer and other lawyers stayed on to help whenever they could.
My hearing was grouped together with Dr Hatta Ramli and Jonson Chong as we were arrested on the same spot. But for some strange reason, we were also grouped with 7 others (including Ginie and Tan Chee Hooi) who had been arrested at the KLCC.
All of us put up a good fight. We argued with the IO and DPP for about one and half hour. Our debate only concluded at exactly 22:00hr.
To our surprise the magistrate was convinced by our arguments and rejected the application for remand. She even said: “OKT tidak ada kiatan dengan kesalahan”(the detainees have no connection with the alleged crime).
10 of us were freed!
My joy was not because of the freedom, rather I felt great having denied the pleasure of the AG.
At 23:00hr, Jonson, Hatta, me and others walked out of the gate of Pudu Jail, greeted by our cheerful supporters.
The road to freedom, to free us from the yoke of bigotry, idiocy, stupidity, hypocrisy encapsulted in Umno’s treacherous pit is a long and bitter one. Gandhi was jailed more than a thousand times, Martin Luther King was jailed a hundred times and Mandela spent 25 years in jail. In the end they prevailed. Tian Chua and his fellow Malaysians have been punched, kicked, spat at, abused, tortured and jailed by the Malaysian Gestapo, but in the end they will prevail. The Malaysian Gestapo may be a terror organisation sanctioned by Umno and its ilk, but justice will prevail. What goes around will come around. The chickens will come to roost one day. When that day comes, Umno and the Gestapo will have to pay for their crimes against humanity.
How did you put forward your arguments? That will be interesting.