Today, 24th of May, 2011, for the Sixth time my brother, Numpang Suntai appeared in court. However, it is not OVER. The judge did not make any ruling and the case is to be determined at another date. Obviously, the prosecutor is playing with the court at tax payers expenses.
The charge against my brother, Numpang Anak Suntai for intimidation was thrown out of court on Thursday, March 10th, 2011. Numpang was discharged and acquitted by the Magistrate who ruled that the prosecution had failed to make up a prima facie case against him. We breath a sigh of relief and thought we could live free from harrassment and intimdation and get on with our lives.
We were wrong! The prosecutor had appealed. My brother Numpang Suntai was told to appear at Kuching High Court of Appeal on April 10th 2011 and he did but the prosecutor was not there. The mention was then scheduled for May 10th, 2011.
On May 10th, 2011 at 9:00 AM, Numpang Suntai together with his lawyers, YB See Chee How and Desmond Kho, appeared before High Court Registrar Zubaidah Zharkawi as ordered but the case was far from over. The High Court scheduled May 24th to decide whether to dismiss the prosecutor’s appeal against the discharge and acquittal of my brother, Numpang Suntai, from the charge of intimidation.
As you can recall, my brother Numpang Suntai had led a number of Native landowners, had urged the company, Loyal Bullion,who was extracting timber for another firm, Quality Concrete, claming to have been given the permit to exploit timber from an area of forests (pemakai menoa) owned by the Natives of Sebangan, to leave the area. For that kind advice, Numpang was charged for intimidation.
As the workers were allegedly paid by the companies with connection to the Chief Minister’s sister Roziah, this case was classified as a high profile case. As such the Police had to act and they did arrest my brother and 6 others to include five village headmen. They were jailed for 3 days.
To prosecute just for the purpose of prosecuting in order to please certain people, however powerful they may be, is wasting a lot of tax payers’ money, not to mention the appearance of targeted prosecution of my brother because he fights to keep our Native Customary Rights lands and forest in Ulu Sebangan from further encroachment and destruction.
The standard test in criminal cases is that guilt must be proved beyond any reasonable doubt but they continue to prosecute my brother anyway and May 24th will be his 6th appearance in court.
Numpang said “They are the ones who use the gangsters to intimidate us, they are the ones who utilise the police to harass us. “And yet I am the one who is going to be charged for criminal intimidation,” Numpang told the press.
“Within (our NCR) area, there are pulau galau, forests that have been deliberately preserved for future generations in "pemakai menoa" (our territory). I have every right, like anybody else, to (talk about) and fight for the rights of everybody in the area,” he explained.
He added that the fight was all about ensuring what has been theirs for generations, their native customary rights remain with them. “If all that’s taken from us, we don’t have anything,” he said.
Numpang pointed out that the issue was not specific to Sebangan , but all of Sarawak, from Lundu to Lawas,(whether) Malay, Lun Bawang, Kayan, Kenyah, Iban, it doesn’t matter.
“It stems from the simple fact of how the country is administered, how laws are made…<strong>I don’t like being locked up in jail, I don’t like to do a blockade up in the mountain, not enough food, not enough sleep, but the strength I have comes from the fact that I know I am doing the correct thing.”
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