SHAH ALAM, 13 Nov 2008: Selangor Local Government, Research and Development Committee chairperson Ronnie Liu today filed a notice of motion to set aside the warrant of arrest issued and served on him yesterday.
The motion was filed on his behalf by his counsel Gobind Singh Deo at the Shah Alam Hight Court at about 3pm.
“We contend that the warrant of arrest is irregular and does not comply with the provision of the requisite law. So, we are asking the court to give a declaration or to exercise its inherent power to revise the order and set it aside…we will decide what action to take later on,” he told reporters after filing the motion.
Gobind said he would wait for the court to fix an early date to hear the motion.
He said the important argument to set aside the warrant was the manner in which it was served on his client, Liu.
“We maintain that YB (Yang Berhormat) Ronnie Liu has no reason to abscond from the police. He is an elected representative and a Selangor executive council member, so it is easy for the police to find him.
“If the police require his presence at the police station or court, they can easily contact him and he will make himself present, but there is no need to do what they did yesterday.”
Gobind said there was no need for the police to rush to Liu’s office to execute the order of the warrant and this issue would be taken up at the court hearing.
“A warrant of arrest is issued normally when there is reason to believe that the person will abscond and the police would have to go round looking for him. But we maintain that the police knew where he (Liu) was, and he was prepared to cooperate and would come to the police station voluntarily.”
Gobind also questioned why it took about a year for the police to act against Liu, in response to Selangor police chief Datuk Khalid Abu Bakar’s statement today that the process of collecting evidence until the authorisation to prosecute the case took quite a long time.
“If the police needed a year to investigate a small case like this, then as Malaysian citizens, we cannot accept his leadership as the state police chief as he would find it even more difficult to handle the more serious cases,” he said.
Gobind said he wondered what was so technical about the investigation into Liu’s case and he expected Khalid to be in court to prove it and give a logical explanation.
Newspapers reported today that Liu was arrested about 2pm yesterday at the lobby of the Selangor State Secretariat building.
He was arrested over an incident on 2 Nov 2007, in which he allegedly tried to stop Subang Jaya Municipal Council (MPSJ) enforcement officers from sealing a hotel in Puchong which was believed to be involved in immoral activities. — Bernama
