Last interview with Tiger of Jelutong

For Karpal, no going out the back door

INTERVIEW Nearly 30 years on from one of the first of many threats on his life, Karpal Singh still refuses to slip quietly out the back door.

Then, he was urged by police officers to secretly leave a courtroom to avoid the danger posed by a man, claiming to have spiritual powers, who threatened to attack Karpal for suing the sultan.

Karpal refused, saying “if I go through that back door now, I will go through back doors all my life.”

The 74-year-old lawyer-politician maintains the same stoicism today, in the face of yet another attempt by the government to not only kill his political career, but also to put him in jail.

The sentence for his recent sedition conviction, a RM4,000 fine, precludes Karpal from holding political office and imposes a five-year disqualification period on running for Parliament again.

Malaysia has no upper-age limit to enter Parliament, and Karpal said he would be 82 when he would be eligible to return to politics.

“They are not doing it fairly; it is not the right way to do it,” Karpal said of the attempt to remove him from politics.

Karpal wanted to travel at night to have time to prepare for case, says Gobind

IPOH: Karpal Singh insisted on travelling at night by car to Penang so that he can prepare for a court case later in the day, said his son Gobind Singh Deo.

"I last met him at Pantai Hospital in Bangsar when I was there for treatment.

"We talked for quite awhile and he said many many things and said we will talk later about it," said Gobind, who is Puchong MP.

Gobind said he got a call from his wife about the accident at about 2.15am Thursday.

"She wanted to get confirmation and we later drove to Kampar.

"We've seen his body and that of Michael, his caretaker, who was seated behind him in the car," Gobind said, adding that his brother, Ramkarpal, who was also in the car was slightly injured with the driver, C Selvam.

Karpal's Indonesian domestic helper, however, is critically injured.

Gobind said he would announce the date for Karpal's funeral later.

"A lot of friends and family members from overseas want to come back and pay their last respects at the family home in Jalan Utama in Penang.

"We plan to hold it either on Saturday evening or Sunday morning to allow well-wishers to make their travelling arrangements," he said.

He said he understood the feelings of the people who wanted to know more about the accident but appealed to them to give the family the privacy and time to mourn.

"We will update the people later," he said.


Source : http://www.thestar.com.my/News/Nation/2014/04/17/karpal-singh-Gobind-singh-accident-travelling-at-night/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Karpal killed in accident near Kampar

Veteran opposition MP and lawyer Karpal Singh was killed in an accident near Kampar in Perak this morning.

His long-time personal assistant Michael Cornelius Selvam Vellu, 39, was also killed.

Karpal's son Ram Karpal and the driver were believed to be injured in the accident which occurred at 1.10am near 301.6km northbound marker along the the North-South Highway.

Malaysiakini learnt that Karpal and his son, who is also a lawyer, were heading north for a court case later today.

Photos taken at the scene of the accident - near Gua Tempurung
in Kampar - show the white Toyota Alphard badly damaged.

Contacted later, an Ipoh police spokesperson told Malaysiakini that it is believed the MPV collided with a lorry which switched lanes without indication.

Karpal's other son and Puchong MP Gobind Singh Deo (left) told The Star that his father had died on the spot.

"My brother Ram is slightly injured but we are trying to get through to him," he added when the daily contacted him at 3.30am.

According to a police statement later, Ram and driver of the ill-fated car, C Selvam, were not injured. However, Karpal's Indonesian maid suffered severe injuries and she is warded at Ipoh's Hospital Permaisuri Bainun.

Obama Visit to Malaysia Set for April 27

US President must walk a delicate line in a country facing increasing international criticism

                         Maybe he’ll wear this shirt to meet Najib

US President Barack Obama is expected to visit Japan, South Korea, the Philippines and Malaysia this month as part of his push to increase US diplomatic, economic and security engagement with countries in the Asia-Pacific region.

But despite the relative size and strategic importance of the other countries, it is his April 27 trip to Malaysia that arguably gives the president his biggest problems.

Given the events of the past few months, Obama will visit a country that has earned some of the worst press in Asia, not only for its fumbling response to the loss of its jetliner, MH370, with 239 people aboard, but to revelations of growing racial and religious intolerance, blatant attempts to silence the opposition through spurious legal action and bizarre charges by Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak’s own newspaper that the Central Intelligence Agency kidnapped the plane to foment trouble with China, 152 of whose citizens were aboard the missing craft.

The same newspaper, Utusan Malaysia, repeated as a real possibility speculation by former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad that the CIA brought down the World Trade Towers in 2001 as a plot to blame Muslims for the destruction.

In recent weeks, an appeals court has reversed a lower court decision against opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, declaring him guilty of what were clearly trumped up charges of sodomy.

The meltdown of Malaysian institutions

There was a time when Malaysia was known for its institutions – a civil service that facilitated rapid development from an agrarian economy to an industrialised one, a judiciary that was held in high esteem of the Commonwealth, and a military that defeated a communist insurgency.

Today, more than 50 years as a nation spanning from Perlis to Sabah, we see ineptitude and incompetency, a complete meltdown of Malaysian institutions.

The Attorney-General now farms out cases to an Umno lawyer; the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) leads an organisation which does not act when a High Court rules; the Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) suffers a credibility deficit; and the air force has not covered itself with any glory.

So who do Malaysians turn to in time of need?

Not any of the above, it appears. Sad but true.

The saga of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, which disappeared with 239 people on board on March 8, has confirmed what Malaysians have suspected for a long time. That there is not much meritocracy and thinking going on in the civil service.

Internet bristles with conspiracy theories on MH370

MH370 After almost a month with scant information, a litany of conspiracy theories has emerged to fill the void in the bid to explain Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370’s mysterious disappearance.

There is even a webpage on the online encyclopedia Wikipedia listing these theories.

“How could the most sophisticated military base in the world not detect a commercial plane?” several Twitter users asked.
                        
Amongst the theories, it appears that the most popular and persistent one revolves around Diego Garcia, a joint United States-United Kingdom military base in the middle of the Indian Ocean.

As with any conspiracy theory, the details and purported motivations vary, but it involves MH370 being hijacked - whether remotely or by special forces units - and then flown to Diego Garcia where the crew and passengers are held prisoners.

Malaysiakini had been monitoring Twitter for mentions of MH370 over the past three weeks and observed that many of these mentioned Diego Garcia (right), especially amongst tweets that have been shared by several other users.

The Diego Garcia story persisted even as other theories on what happened to the Boeing 777-200ER aircraft came and went in the public discourse.

As of yesterday, there are 1,000 to 2,000 tweets per hour on MH370 depending on the time of day, while tweets mentioning Diego Garcia are steady at about 50 tweets per hour.

Where in the world is Diego Garcia?

Speculation about Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 has put the tiny atoll of Diego Garcia on the map.

IN light of the recent events surrounding the ill-fated MH370 flight that disappeared from radar detection in the early hours of March 8, numerous geographic locations have come to light, and one in particular that has become a point of interest among investigators and ordinary folk is a little-known spot in the middle of the Indian Ocean called Diego Garcia.

The atoll, which takes the form of a ring shaped reef, first came to world attention in 2004 after the Asian tsunami disaster and now has resurfaced thanks to conspiracy theories that have sprung up connecting MH370 to it.

Because of its favourable ocean topography, including a deep underwater trench, the island was shielded from major damage during the 2004 tsunami.

While a 1.8m-high wave did hit the island, the underwater canyon essentially bore the brunt of the assault and there was no major impact on the island’s facilities or its people.