No prima facie case ...

I write this today not to repeat what the Star had written about 3 Mexicans, all brothers, who were caught by the Police for manufacturing syabu and about 2 individuals caught for possessing RM 360,000 worth of amphetamines. I write this only to remind me later of what the sentence pronounced by Malaysian judges would be because I have the feeling that these cases would, as in many drug related cases in the past, be treated as non prima facie by the presiding judge. There was a case, not really that long ago, about a judge who set a drug peddler free because of errors by the prosecution. The police had charged the man for peddling in methampethamine when it was proven in cross examination that the man was, in fact, peddling in ketamine. Because of this slight oversight on the part of the police, the dishonourable judge dismissed the case as one that has no prima facie and let the man go scot free. This is like a judge dismissing a murder case and setting free a murderer who was charged with killing using a Kalashnikov when it fact it is proven that he used an M16 ! Because of a slight technical error, the murderer gets away with it.

Back to the 3 Mexican brothers who are being assisted by their Embassy officials who are purposely delaying the hearing just because they could not find anyone in Malaysia who are competent in both Malay and Spanish. I find this silly. Firstly, it is unthinkable that the 3 Mexicans cannot speak English when coming to this country. Secondly, court hearing can easily be conducted in English (all educated Malaysians are proficient in their mother tongue and the English language - in fact, too good). The embassy officials can easily act as interpreters for the 3 Mexicans, unless of course the embassy officials cannot speak a word of English when posted to Malaysia.

Update 07/04/2011 Thursday: Let me wait for the outcome of the trials of the very recent case of 9 Iranis (including 4 Iranian women) being just caught yesterday for having in their possession 71.4 kg (worth RM 17.9) of syabu and RM 7.1 million in cash. According to the Police, this year alone (Jan to Apr 2011), 65 individuals have been apprehended for trafficking in 297 kg of syabu worth RM 75 million.

To smuggle in 71 kg of contraband is difficult. Drugs can be easily detected at the points of entry. Most probably, the Iranis manufactured them in this country for local use and for exports to other countries. These Iranis have no compunction in dealing with drugs as long as they make money. The Malaysian authorities should come down hard on these people, these foreigners, who come here not as tourists but as criminals to sabotage the peoples of Malaysia. They should be treated as high security risks.

Before, I suppose, they used to go to US for trafficking in drugs, but with US imposing strict conditions at its border and perpetually looking at people from the Middle East with suspicions, these Iranian criminals are now turning to other countries to indulge in unsavoury activities.

Update 08/04/2011 Friday: While the above case involving Iranians is still warm, today the authorities have caught 2 Pakistanis involved in high grade heroin weighing ..... kg which were smuggled into the country. The 2 Pakistanis are in cahoot with a West African. This is typical of the Customs and Immigration personnel not doing their jobs leaving the dirty work to be done by the Police. When will these drug merchants ever learnt ?

Update 12/04/2011 Wednesday: Yesterday, TV news has it that an Iranian woman with children was caught at the LCCT for attempting to smuggle drugs into the country. The drugs were found in 2 packages in pockets in her waistband. She was immediately apprehended. Haven't these people learnt that it's the gallows for drug smugglers in this country ?

Another price hike ...

Pump price of RON 97 increases again tomorrow. This time, it's 20 sen more per litre making the total price to be RM 2.70 per litre. RON 95 petrol price remains intact for the time being. As sure as the price per barrel of crude oil will rise again, it won't be long before the price of RON 95 petrol goes up again from the present RM 1.90 per litre.

There's no reason for the petrol price or indeed the crude oil price to go up just because of the turmoil in Libya. Libya is still pumping oil, while not maybe at the usual rate of 2.2 million barrels per day. Iraq, Iran and of course Saudi Arabia can easily make up for the shortfall of 2.2 million barrels should Libya suddenly stop production. Why the panic ?

The silly things that Malaysians do ..

The other day Bung Mukhtar said in Parliament that women drivers are bad drivers stating that they were slow, lacked driving skill, and generally did as they like when on the road. He claimed that this was especially so for women who had just got their driving licences.

First of all, such trivia should not be uttered at all in a House of Parliament. If he really wanted to vent his feelings against women drivers, let it be done in the cafeteria, or anywhere else in private, among a few MPs, and certainly not while Parliament was in session.

But the trouble is what he said the other day has become a topic of debate - in Parliament, in the mainstream media, in the internet, with women now taking up arms against him. Even his new wife was given publicity in the mainstream media for saying that she was not all in favour of the MP's opinions on women drivers.

We Malaysians seem to have nothing better to do than to debate on what Bung Mukhtar said when what was said was nothing but "pub talk", things that one simply says when one is drunk or a subject in the "battle of the sexes" since women were invented. It should be struck off from the Hansard.

Another silly thing that Malaysians do is about the so called video sex tape. It takes several days for the Malaysian Police to determine the the tape was genuine when it won't take a few minutes for any Malaysian schoolboy to say that the tape is genuine. Now, the Malaysian Police is contemplating of acquiring foreign expertise to determine who the persons in the tape are ! Unless he or she is blind, anybody watching the tape can easily recognise who the persons are especially if one of them has a populist face, like Anwar Ibrahim. Why waste hundred of thousands of ringgits to bring in experts from Hollywood or Bollywood, or professors from Cambridge or Harvard just to say hey, that guy in the tape looks exactly like Anwar Ibrahim. Anwar could refute by saying that the man in the tape looks like him, behaves like him, and so on but is the person really, incontrovertibly, Anwar Ibrahim. VK Lingam would be sniggering with glee.

A frustrating day ..

My Apple computer, an IMac with 24" screen, packed up the day before. No matter how much I tried to boot the Apple operating system, the screen simply showed blank. Finally, I summoned the courage to take it to Machines to check what happened and possibly get the computer repaired. To my horror, the people at Machines diagnosed the problem as one with a crashed hard disk. One of the salesmen reckoned that there was no way Apple technician can recover the data and suggested that I replace the computer with a new hard disk. It would set me back some few hundred Ringgit and, knowing Apple, the cost to me would be anything from RM 500/= to RM 1,000/=. As I really need the computer, I agreed for it to be repaired. I will think of something to recover the data which are quite important to me.

Then I did a silly thing. After much thought, I made a decision to buy another IMac rationalising that, once the 24" computer has been repaired, I would let Arif and the others use it for their graphic design studies while I use the brand new and highly sophisticated computer.

The new IMac with a 27" screen cost me a pretty penny. It is one of Apple's top end home computers, with one terabyte hard disk, 4 gigabyte DDR3 memory, and a screen that can display up to 2,560x 1,440 pixels.