OPEN LETTER | Dear Dr Mahathir Mohamad, congratulations on being elected prime minister of Malaysia. I was glad to see that the elections were fair. I hope this heralds the dawn of democracy in Malaysia, the country that has seen my daughter and son grow up.
I welcome your initiative to request a pardon for de facto PKR leader Anwar Ibrahim. It indicated that you recognised the errors of the past and sought to correct them.
If Malaysia is truly taking a step towards meaningful democracy, then the country must reckon with all its past wrongs. Democracy built on the tortured bodies of the innocent – including mine – is no democracy at all. I am writing to ask that you give me and my family what we are owed: justice.
It has been 20 years since Malaysian police threw me in jail on trumped-up charges merely because I was associated with Anwar. I had committed no crime, yet the police came to my home and took me away. When my children came back from school that day, their father was gone. Their mother was left alone to explain to them what had happened.
At the time, the aim was to tarnish Anwar politically. He was also arrested around the same time and thrown in jail.
The police went about trying to wrongfully implicate me in crimes with Anwar. At first, I refuted the allegations and strongly resisted any suggestion to implicate me in any offences. That is when the torture started.
The police subjected me to all manner of abuse: beatings, being doused in freezing water, depriving me of sleep and food. The torture had such a serious effect on me that I suffered a heart problem and had to be taken to the hospital. It was there that, for the first time, I was allowed to see my family.
After weeks in torturous custody, I relented. I told my torturers – your police officers – what they wanted to hear. None of it was true. All of it was said to make the torture stop. When I was presented before court I repeated what I had said to the police, fearful that to say otherwise would mean being tortured again.
Grim details of my torturous detention under the Internal Security Act may be found in my statutory declaration of Nov 7, 1998.
Once I was released – thanks to the efforts of my lawyers, my wife and my friends – I appealed my conviction.
Unfortunately, Malaysia’s courts – unaware or dismissive of the fact that you cannot convict anyone on the basis of information obtained through torture – upheld my wrongful conviction.
The abuse these thugs meted out on me had long-lasting repercussions. My family and I were forced to flee the home we had made in Malaysia, fearful of the reprisals against us, our spirit shattered. We were destitute. I was unable to rebuild my life because of the psychological scars and the unjust criminal conviction hanging over me.
You and Anwar Ibrahim seem to have turned a page. That is commendable. But where is the justice me and my family deserve?
I am an innocent man used as a pawn in a political game – one that seems to now have come full circle. The scales of justice must finally come even. With Anwar's name and honour cleared through this pardon, I too must have this unjust criminal record against me expunged.
I, therefore, ask you – as head of state – to ensure that I am granted a full pardon that will clear my name and this shadow that hangs over me. I cannot forget what Malaysian police thugs had done to me.
MUNAWAR A ANEES was Anwar Ibrahim's former speech-writer, who served six months in prison in 1998 over a sodomy conviction he had subsequently tried to challenge in court.
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