FEB 12 — We can always count on Hishammuddin Hussein to talk absolute nonsense, and now it appears that his disease is contagious, with a police spokesman also talking gibberish.

According to the home minister, Malaysia deported Saudi blogger Hamza Kashgari because it is a convention that when someone is wanted by another country for an alleged offence, he will be arrested and deported by Malaysian authorities. He was quoted as saying so by The Star newspaper.

He obviously is not aware of the case of Italian businessman Octavio Quatorrochi, who was wanted by the Indian government to answer for corruption charges related to the Bofors arms scandal.

There was no automatic deportation there. In fact, there was a court case on whether the Italian should be deported.

So Hishammuddin is not right to give the impression that deportation is done in automatic fashion. But then again, this is the same minister who, when asked why a French lawyer investigating corruption in the Scorpene submarine deal was deported, said that the latter had entered the country without a proper visa.

That explanation would have made sense if the lawyer was from Nigeria, but he is from a European Union country, where visas are not necessary when visiting Malaysia.

Once again, he is speaking without thinking. But he is in good company, it seems. Because when Reuters asked a police spokesman about the Saudi blogger’s case, his reply was: “This is an internal Saudi matter which we cannot comment on.”

Huh? Arresting and deporting someone, sending him to possible execution, is not a Saudi matter. The Malaysian police cannot pretend that it is a disinterested spectator.

Malaysia is a sovereign country, not some colony of Saudi Arabia.

The blogger is accused of a serious offence and faces the death penalty. He made a big, big mistake of coming to Malaysia, a country where due process is an alien concept.

* Othman Wahab reads The Malaysian Insider.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication. The Malaysian Insider does not endorse the view unless specified.