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©Malaysiakini (Used by permission)
by Soon Li Tsin & Chua Sue-Ann

The royal commission on the Lingam tape today zeroed in on the correspondence between Chief Justice Mohamed Dzaiddin Abdullah and ex-prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad on the appointment on High Court judges in 2001.

Former chief secretary to the government Samsudin Osman was today asked to confirm the letters which were exchanged between Mohamed Dzaiddin and Mahathir seven years ago. Samsudin, as the chief secretary, was privy to the highly confidential correspondence.

In one letter dated Oct 2, 2001, Mohamed Dzaiddin recommended five names to Mahathir to be appointed to the High Court.

The five were then solicitor-general Heliliah Yusof, judicial commissioners Ramly Ali and Ahmad Maarop, and senior lawyers Andrew Chew and Zainudin Ismail.

However, another letter which was later submitted by Samsudin to Mahathir had a list of five additional persons who should also be considered for the High Court posts.

Samsudin denied that his recommendations were influenced by other parties. He also said that he had not spoken to Mohamed Dzaiddin regarding the appointment and promotion of judges

The commission was told that when Mahathir subsequently responded to Mohamed Dzaiddin on the successful candidates, the names of Chew and Zainudin - which was suggested by the then CJ - were dropped.

The two were replaced by Sulaiman Daud and VT Singham - both from the list prepared by Samsudin.

Samsudin told the commission that he was not sure as to why Chew and Zainuddin were not selected.

“I don’t know. It was the prime minister’s decision,” he claimed.

He also said that he does not personally know lawyer VK Lingam but knew tycoon Vincent Tan whom he had met in the course of his work.

Dzaiddin’s men dropped

The list of candidates forwarded by Mohamed Dzaiddin is important as Lingam is caught talking about it to former chief justice Ahmad Fairuz Sheikh Abdul Halim in his telephone conversation, said to be in December 2001.

Mohamed Dzaiddin retired in 2003 and was replaced by Ahmad Fairuz, who himself retired last December.

In the grainy 14-minute video, Lingam tells Ahmad Fairuz that Zainudin’s name was dropped because he “condemned” Ahmad Fairuz’s promotion to chief judge of Malaya and former attorney-general Mohtar Abdullah’s appointment to the Federal Court.

According to the video, Lingam said: "There is a letter sent to … ah … CJ - I mean Tan Sri Dzaiddin - that Datuk Heliliah, …er Datuk Ramli and Datuk Maarop be made judges, and he (Mahathir) rejected that Dr Andrew Chew and apa itu Zainudin Ismail lah because Zainuddin Ismail who condemned your appointment and Tan Sri Mohtar’s appointment."

As mentioned by Lingam in the video, the two lawyers were indeed dropped when the appointments to the High Court were officially announced two months later.

The video also showed Lingam expressing concern that the outgoing chief justice Mohamed Dzaiddin was moving his ‘men’ into top judiciary posts.

The conversation revolved around the urgent need to get Ahmad Fairuz, then chief judge of Malaya - the judiciary’s No 3 - appointed as Court of Appeal president (No 2) and then chief justice (No 1).

OSA documents

Lingam's conversation also included references to tycoon Tan, a close crony of then prime minister Mahathir, and Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor, a key minister in the PM’s Department.

They were to lobby Mahathir on the appointment of judges.

Samsudin today said that he was not sure as to how Lingam could get access to the highly confidential letters exchanged between Mohamed Dzaiddin and Mahathir.

He added that these letters were never made available to ministers or their deputies.

“I assure you we guard (these documents) very closely ... I am also puzzled by this,” he told the commission.

Samsudin also confirmed that all 30 documents tendered to the inquiry today were classified as official secrets.

Some of these letters and memorandums were stamped ‘Official Secret’ while others were not.

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