Friday, 13-Feb-2004 7:45 AM

HARAKAH ENGLISH SECTION

An SB officer spills his guts

Raja Petra Kamarudin

In the last issue of Harakah I wrote about Anwar Ibrahim’s Arsenic poisoning. In that piece I challenged the Malaysian government to conduct an investigation through a Royal Commission of Inquiry to establish the truth in the event there are any doubts as to the authenticity of my testimony. Well, an Australian television station has taken up that challenge and is now investigating the matter, probably with intentions to soon feature the story in one of their documentaries. Stay tuned for more explosive exposes.

In fact, the Arsenic poisoning was not the first attempt against Anwar’s life. While still in the government, there were many mysterious accidents that have not been explained until today. Take the case of the helicopter crash. Anwar was supposed to have been on that flight but fortunately was not when it went down killing all on board. Then the brakes in his car failed, which was something the manufacturer swore could never happen, and an investigation revealed it had been tampered with. Only the quick thinking of his driver saved them all from plunging over a cliff.

Another not so talked about incident was the attempt to inject Anwar with HIV infected blood. This happened in the weeks after he was detained in September 1998.

I was then on a business trip to Kuala Terengganu with an old school friend, a retired army colonel, who had many years experience doing covert work for the Malaysian government under his belt. We had just completed our Maghrib prayers when his cellphone rang. The conversation he had with the caller at the other end of the line was most intriguing to say the least. I could not hear what the caller was saying but I could certainly hear my friend. I think the whole hotel probably heard him as well for he was shouting at the top of this voice.

“What’s going on (Apa pasal ni?)”………. “Hey, calm down (Hey, bertenanglah)!”………… Stop crying, tell me what’s going on (Janganlah menangis, bagitahu aku apa dah jadi.”

There was a moment of silence as, I assume, the caller explained what the problem was. By then I was all ears. This was definitely a most captivating situation. My friend listened without commenting. At the end of it all he just grunted and hung up.

My friend sat at the edge of the bed without uttering a word. I could sense he was in no mood to talk and I did not press him to do so though I was bursting with curiosity. I knew he would tell me when he was ready so all I had to do was to remain patient. And my patience paid off.

“That was my bother,” my friend said. “He works for the Special Branch.”

“Oh.” I did not know how to respond to that. I thought I knew my friend, but a brother who works for the Special Branch? Oops. Was I in trouble or what?

“He was crying like a baby. He told me he had to tell someone so he called me. But he told me not to tell anyone.”

God, I just hate it when someone tells me he has a great secret but he cannot tell me what it is. Why don’t they just shut up? Why tell me they are trustee to a secret then, in the same breath, say they cannot reveal it?

There were a couple more minutes of silence. I knew my friend was dying to tell me what it was. There was no way he could not tell me. He just wanted to wait a couple of minutes before breaking his promise. That way he probably would not feel too guilty at pecah amanah (breach of trust).

“My brother told me not to tell anyone but I have to. Something needs to be done. We cannot allow this thing to happen.”

I said nothing. I did not want my friend to feel I was trying to korek (digging) the information from him. I wanted him to feel he was volunteering the information. Then he told me what the conversation was all about.

His brother, the Special Branch officer, had just left a meeting where they had discussed the possibility of injecting Anwar with HIV infected blood. Why they wanted to do this was not clear, but it could either be to bump him off or to “prove” he is a homosexual. The reason was never explained and it was also never explained whether this was an official Special Branch exercise or a rouge operation.

My friend’s Special Branch brother was appalled. He left the meeting an extremely disturbed man and broke down. That was when he phoned my friend and spilled his guts out.

It actually did not make sense. Even if they succeeded in doing this, Anwar would not die immediately. Even if he did get inflicted with AIDS it would probably be many years before he succumbs to an AIDS-related ailment. But then, does anything these people do make sense? Desperate people, after all, do stupid things.

My friend and I discussed what we should do. We could not remain silent. We needed to do something. But what? We could not go public with this without any evidence. Then there was my friend’s brother to consider. He would probably end up under ISA detention if we went public with this information.

I called up some friends, webmasters, and told them of the plan to inject Anwar with HIV infected blood over the following couple of days or so. None of them believed me. Never mind, I told them. I too find it hard to believe. This could be a scam. Maybe the Special Branch was throwing us a Red Herring. Maybe they wanted to draw us out. Maybe my friend’s brother was under suspicion and they wanted to test him to see whether he would talk. But we could not afford to take any chances. We needed to pre-empt it in the event it was true, so we needed the story to be all over the Internet.

The next day, the Internet was alive with the story and of course, in the end, it never happened. Did it not happen because the story was not true or was it because of the publicity we gave it? We will never know of course but still thank God nevertheless that it did not happen.

Oh, and my friend’s brother left the Special Branch soon after that and became an active PAS member. Hmm, was he “turned over” by the event that night in late 1998 or was he sent by the Special Branch to infiltrate PAS?

Now that is certainly another story Hollywood movies are made of.