There is a saying “Silence means consent.” Only a fool believes in such a saying. There is no such principle in law. If an accused person remains silent in court when a charge is read against him, the court will call on the prosecution to prove his guilt. A rapist cannot claim innocence by saying that the female victim did not object.

Just now, a reporter called me. He said that it’s been 120 days since JAIS seized 321 Malay and Iban bibles from BSM. He asked whether the bibles have been returned. I told him, No.

He also told me that he called the Attorney General’s Chambers and asked about status of this case. The officer he spoke to said that they are not interested in charging BSM and please don’t disturb the AG.

Any prosecution under the Selangor Enactment must be prosecuted by the Attorney General. As one of the appointed enforcers of the Enactment, JAIS may investigate and present their investigation papers (known as the “IP”) with all the evidence and their recommendation to prosecute BSM to the Attorney General. If there is evidence that an offence has been committed, the Attorney General will then commence proceedings in the Magistrate’s Court in Shah Alam to charge BSM or me or Sinclair Wong for committing an offence under the Enactment. Then we will have to defend ourselves and the Magistrate’s Court will decide if we have committed an offence or not.

Reviews of the video recordings of the raid on BSM and the arrest show the senior JAIS officer saying “I arrest you under Section 9 of the Enactment.”

When my statement was recorded in JAIS’  office on 10 January 2014, the recording officer asked: “Do you know that your bible contravened the Enactment?”

Section 9 says that it is an offence to use any prohibited words (in this case, the word “Allah”) in a published writing to describe anything pertaining to a non-Islamic religion. Thus, the raid, arrest  and investigation by JAIS was predicated on the premise that the use of the word “Allah” in our Malay and Iban bibles was in contravention of Section 9 of the Enactment.

When JAIS submitted their IP to the AG, the AG had 2 choices: to charge BSM or not to take any action. According to various press statements made by the Selangor State EXCO, the IP was submitted by JAIS in either late January or early February. Three months have passed and the AG has not taken any action. If what was told by the AG’s office to the reporter is to be believed, the AG has decided not to charge BSM with the offence that JAIS thinks BSM had committed when we published and imported the Malay and Iban bibles.

I can imagine what happened at the AG’s office. When the IP from JAIS landed on his table, the AG would have looked at it with his officers.

“Shall we charge, Tan Sri?”

“You must be joking!”

“JAIS says they are guilty, Tan Sri. They should know. They are very religious people.”

“No, no. No way am I touching this case.”

“So, shall I inform JAIS, Tan Sri?”

“What! No, no! Let them clean up their own mess.”

So, if the AG does not charge, it means that the case submitted to him by JAIS does not raise the minimum evidence for him to prosecute and win the case.

The silence of the AG does not mean that he is looking at the case and considering whether to charge. Silence does not mean pending especially when it it is unreasonably prolonged.

A Section 9 offence is a very simple case. BSM used the word “Allah” in the Malay and Iban bibles. We are not denying it. So, either we have committed an offence or we have not. Simple as that. Our AG is no fool. He does not need more than 3 months to decide a case as simple as this.

The reporter also asked me if this is the case, why is it that JAIS still does not return the bibles. I told him he has to ask this question of JAIS, not me.

This is a question everyone is asking. Why doesn’t  JAIS return the bibles? After all, the only reason for keeping the bibles is to use it as exhibits in a prosecution of BSM in court. If there is not going to be a prosecution, then there is no reason for keeping the bibles.

Let me say that even if BSM is prosecuted, only one copy of the Al-Kitab needs to be produced in court as an exhibit. JAIS can use the copy that they bought from BSM bookstore in August 2013. They don’t need 321 bibles to prove their case.

The reason why JAIS does not want to return the bibles is that this would amount to an admission that they had wrongly raided BSM on 2 January, wrongly arrested BSM’s officers and wrongly interpreted the law. The return of the bibles would result in a massive blow to JAIS’ prestige.

Selangor State EXCO in many press statements had said that JAIS was justified in carrying out the raid and that they had acted within the law. The return of the bibles would also be an indictment against the Selangor government. They would be seen as backing an unjustified raid against non-Muslims for the exercise of their faith.

Too many sins have been committed. It is better to hold on to the bibles and tell the public that they are waiting for the AG to say something. Hopefully, if they hold out long enough, everybody will forget about it.