THIRTY years ago, senior High Court judge Datuk Syed Ahmad Idid Syed Abdullah was forced to resign after the authorities discovered that he was the person who had exposed then Chief Justice Tun Mohamed Eusoff Chin and senior lawyer Datuk V K Lingam holidaying together in New Zealand.
Then, it was unheard of for a senior lawyer and his family to go on a vacation with a judge and his family, what more the highest ranking judicial officer in the country, although the parties had contended that the families had just happened to meet in New Zealand. Eusoff, who passed away on Aug 7, had claimed that the meeting was a mere coincidence.
However, instead of the authorities investigating the allegation, swift action was taken against Syed Ahmad Idid, the whistleblower, who was six years in as a High Court judge serving in the commercial court.
Syed Ahmad Idid explains that he had penned the exposé as he was afraid of what was to occur or become of Malaysia if an independent judiciary succumbed to such unwanted relationships.
A former customs officer for six years and then head of legal at a private bank before being a judge, he was concerned that the possibility of such abuses or corruption would be detrimental to a young independent country like Malaysia.
“When officials came to my [judge’s] chambers on June 28, 1996, I was offered two options. As I had just recently survived a heart attack the previous year, the fear of going to jail or being placed under the Internal Security...
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