by Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP for Tanjong, Lim Kit Siang, in Petaling Jaya on Sunday, October 30, 1994:
Attorney-General should volunteer to appear before a Parliamentary Committee to explain why he had been overprotective of Tan Sri Rahim Tamby Cik While being very unfair to the 15-year-old girl
The Attorney-General Dada Mohtar Abdullah said al London yesterday that he was willing to re-open the case against Tan Sri Rahim Tamby Cik for allegedly having sexual relations with an underaged girl if there is fresh evidence.
He defended his press conference statement over a week ago in revealing the girl’s sexual background claiming that the girl’s sexual history had been made known to the public even before it was revealed in the police report.
This is completely untrue. Nobody knew, until it was revealed by Datuk Mohtar Abdullah, that the girl had alleged that apart from Tail Sri Rahim Tamby Cik, 14 other individuals had sexual relations with her and that she had lodged 17 police reports.
It was also not public knowledge, until the Attorney-General revealed at the press conference, that, the girl was eight weeks pregnant ‘on medical examination’ and that “based on the allegation of the sex act with Tan Sri Rahim, the date of sex act with Tan Sri Rahim, it can be seen that there is no connection between the pregnancy and the sex act allegedly with Taxi Sri Rahim”.
Why did the Attorney-General reveal that 14 other individuals had sexual relations with the girl when Datuk Molnar Abdullah is riot prepared to answer press questions whether Tan Sri Rahim had denied having sex with the girl, and. how many times the girl alleged Ai e hard sex with Tan Sri Rahim?
The Attorney-General cannot blame the press and an unnamed ‘third party’ for these revelations, which were clearly very unfair to the girl while being overprotective of Rahim.
In any event, the Attorney-General should know better than anyone else that ‘two wrongs do riot make a right’. In this case, there were no ‘two wrongs’ but only one wrong – that of the Attorney-General in revealing that 14 other men had sex relations with the girl, when this is completely irrelevant, to the police investigations as to whether Rahim had committed the offence of statutory rape with an underaged girl.
Datak Mohtar should be horrible enough to admit that what he had done was wrong and was a gross injustice against the girl and her family, and should publicly apologise to them for such injustice.
Datuk Mohtar Abdullah should volunteer to appear before a Parliamentary Committee to explain why he had been so protective of Rahim while being so unfair to the girl, and to explain the circumstances under which he would be prepared to re-open investigations into the Rahim case.
Furthermore, can Mohtar Abdullah give an assurance that he would protect the girl from harrassment and victimisation as has been demanded by certain UMN0 circles and agree that what the girl needs now is compassion and rehabilitation, and not being punished for unwittingly causing the downfall of Rahim as Malacca Chief Minister and UMNO Youth Leader ?