LTTE: Attorney General drops all charges against 12 arrested
PETALING JAYA: Attorney General Tan Sri Tommy Thomas has decided to drop all charges against the 12 individuals charged for suspected links with the now-defunct Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) group.
In a statement today, Thomas said that there were ‘no realistic prospect’ for the 12 individuals to get convicted under any of the 34 charges levelled against them.
“Millions of people across the world admire Vladimir Lenin, Josef Stalin, Mao Tse Tung Che Guevara and others. Having their photos and other representations in one’s mobile phone or on their Facebook account does not turn someone into a terrorist.
“Just because these leaders used terror or violence to achieve their political ambitions doesn’t mean that their online supporters should be regarded as a terrorist or is planning a terrorist act.
“That is the common theme of all the 12 LTTE suspects. Each of them had in their mobile phones or Facebook accounts photos of Velupillai Prabhakaran and slain LTTE leader during the civil war in Sri Lanka,” he said.
In Oct last year, the police arrested the 12 in a massive crackdown, detaining them under Security Offences (Special Measures) Act (Sosma) for alleged links to the LTTE.
Those arrested include two DAP state assemblymen; Melaka’s Gadek state assemblyman G Saminathan and Seremban Jaya state assemblyman P Gunasekaran.
All of them denied links to LTTE and claimed that they were only holding LLTE paraphernalia as they sympathised with the plight of the Tamil minority in Sri Lanka.
Defending his latest decision, Thomas said that the law would be brought into disrepute if the men were charged for simply having photos of LTTE leaders and some paraphernalia.
In legal terms, he added that it would be tough to establish that the men did not fall under the excluded category of Section 130B(4) of the Penal Code, where acts of advocacy, protest, dissent or industrial action which are not intended to cause death, serious injury or risk to public safety are not considered terrorist acts.
“Therefore, I have decided to discontinue proceedings against them with immediate effect under Article 145(3) of the Federal Constitution,” he said.
The above-mentioned law under the Federal Constitution grants the AG absolute power to institute or discontinue any proceedings.
By G Vinod
