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Dark days for KL cops but morale 'high'
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Sun, Nov 04, 2007
The Straits Times
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SEREMBAN - THESE are dark days for Malaysia's police force.
Its No. 3 chief Ramli Yusof has been charged with a failure to declare some assets, the force is under pressure for not solving several high-profile cases, and some officers have been arrested on suspicion of being snatch thieves.
But deputy police chief Najib Abdul Aziz insists that morale in the force is high.
'Their morale is still high. After all, they do not have to worry as long as they carry out their duties according to the rules,' New Straits Times daily reported yesterday.
| 'What is important is that all personnel continue to follow the rules and instructions of their superiors,' he said on a visit to Seremban police headquarters on Friday.
Ramli Yusof, the director of the Commercial Crimes Investigation Department, was charged on Thursday with concealing assets worth at least RM1 million (S$430,000).
Ramli has been dubbed the '27 million ringgit cop' by the media, after he admitted he was being investigated by the authorities for allegedly amassing RM27 million in assets.
His problems appear to be linked to a power struggle between police chief Musa Hassan and Deputy Internal Security Minister Johari Baharum.
Ramli claimed that he was victimised by senior officers after he carried out an order by Datuk Johari to arrest an alleged underworld boss.
The 55-year-old is the highest-ranked policeman charged with corruption. He has been suspended from the force.
Tan Sri Musa on Friday refuted suggestions that Ramli's suspension had tarnished the image of the force, calling such suspensions a 'standard procedure' for any officer charged with corruption, The Star reported.
The Ramli case has added to a spate of negative publicity for the men in blue.
Police have still not caught the suspected drug traffickers, who killed two undercover cops in a failed drug bust last week, and have also failed to trace the murderer of eight-year-old Nurin Jazlin Jazimin, whose brutal killing in September shocked Malaysians.
Just last week, four policemen attached to the Sentul police headquarters in Kuala Lumpur were investigated in connection with a RM50,000 snatch theft. There had been at least two other such cases; off-duty policemen were caught after carrying out snatch thefts on motorcycles.
And last Thursday, a policeman shocked members of the public in Kelantan when he whipped out his pistol to resist arrest by anti-graft officials.
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