{"id":5103,"date":"2013-06-06T16:58:38","date_gmt":"2013-06-06T08:58:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.therocket.com.my\/en\/?p=5103"},"modified":"2013-06-06T16:58:38","modified_gmt":"2013-06-06T08:58:38","slug":"who-is-zahid-do-we-have-a-criminal-as-a-new-home-minister-kit-siang","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.therocket.com.my\/en\/who-is-zahid-do-we-have-a-criminal-as-a-new-home-minister-kit-siang\/","title":{"rendered":"Who is Zahid? Do we have a criminal as a new Home Minister? \u2014 Kit Siang"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I thank Malaysians who have expressed their outrage at the arrogance and\u00a0\u00a0cockiness of the new Home Minister, Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, who was shown on television\u00a0on Tuesday\u00a0questioning: \u201cWho is Lim Kit Siang? I don\u2019t know who he is.\u201d<\/p>\n

What is important is not \u201cWho is Lim Kit Siang\u201d but \u201cWho is Ahmad Zahid Hamidi\u201d who has become the new Home Minister.<\/p>\n

This has become particularly important following the call by the Chairman of the DAP Legal Bureau and MP for Puchong, Gobind Singh Deo, to the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak to suspend Zahid from the Cabinet to prove the Prime Minister is serious about government reform.<\/p>\n

Gobind has told the Prime Minister that it is \u201cimproper\u201d to put a man who has been ordered to answer a civil suit for assault to be in charge of the powerful home ministry where his actions and conduct could invite conflict, which would reflect on his Barisan Nasional (BN) government.<\/p>\n

What is Najib\u2019s response to Gobind\u2019s contention that putting Zahid in charge of the Home Ministry, which is responsible for the police, is to create\u00a0\u00a0a position of conflict as the Home Ministry is one of the most powerful ministries, with significant influence over various bodies including the police and prisons.<\/p>\n

Ahmad Zahid had been sued by businessman Amir Abdullah Bazli for allegedly punching him in the eye on January 16, 2006 at the Country Heights recreational club in Kajang, Selangor causing the latter to suffer a nasal bone fracture and a swollen left eye.<\/p>\n

Then a deputy information minister, Ahmad Zahid had denied the allegation and applied to the Kuala Lumpur High Court for the case to be thrown out. The application was dismissed by the same court on April 21, 2010.<\/p>\n

He later filed a countersuit against the 41-year-old, claiming to have suffered humiliation and emotional trauma as a result of the accusation.<\/p>\n

But last year, a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeal unanimously ruled against Zahid\u2019s bid to strike out the assault suit and ordered the minister to pay RM5,000 in costs. It also ordered Zahid to respond to the action.<\/p>\n

A response from Najib to Gobind\u2019s query is in order, especially as he is the first Prime Minister to specifically appoint a Minister in the Prime Minister\u2019s Department to be specifically responsible for \u201cintegrity\u201d and \u201cgood governance\u201d.<\/p>\n

Najib should specifically explain whether he knew of the serious allegations of assault against Zahid when the latter was deputy information minister, and whether the Prime Minister had inquired why the police had not charged Zahid for criminal assault in 2006, and the answers that he received.<\/p>\n

Paul Low, who is the Minister with the specific briefs of \u201cintegrity\u201d and \u201cgood governance\u201d should also declare whether he agrees that Zahid should stand down as Home Minister until he has fully cleared himself of the serious charges of assault going back to January 2006 when he was deputy information minister.<\/p>\n

The case raises the pertinent question why Zahid had not been charged by the Police for the criminal offence of assault.<\/p>\n

This raises the further question whether Malaysia has a criminal as the new Home Minister.<\/p>\n

Is Zahid or Najib prepared to answer this issue, on Zahid\u2019s suitability as Home Minister with the serious allegation of criminal assault hanging over Zahid when he was deputy information minister and the failure of the police then to charge Zahid, on the first working day of Parliament on\u00a0June 26? \u2014 The Rocket<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I thank Malaysians who have expressed their outrage at the arrogance and\u00a0\u00a0cockiness of the new Home Minister, Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, who was shown on television\u00a0on Tuesday\u00a0questioning: \u201cWho is Lim Kit Siang? I don\u2019t know who he is.\u201d What is important is not \u201cWho is Lim Kit Siang\u201d but \u201cWho is Ahmad Zahid Hamidi\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5104,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[274],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.therocket.com.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.therocket.com.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.therocket.com.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.therocket.com.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.therocket.com.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5103"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.therocket.com.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5103\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5106,"href":"https:\/\/www.therocket.com.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5103\/revisions\/5106"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.therocket.com.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.therocket.com.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.therocket.com.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.therocket.com.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}