The impossible theft, the improbable truth — “The Malaysian Insider”
The impossible theft, the improbable truth ? The Malaysian Insider
DEC 31 2009 — Fictional Victorian-era private detective Sherlock Holmes, now playing in your nearest cinemas, has said this many times: “Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.”
That quote first came out in “The Sign of the Four” written by Arthur Conan Doyle in 1890.
They come to mind when the nation's top cop Tan Sri Musa Hassan yesterday blamed three low-ranking airmen and an agent for the theft of two fighter jet GE J85-21A turbojet engines over the past two years.
"Investigations revealed that this case does not involve any top-ranking officer from the air force as reported earlier. Only three lower rank officers have been detained.
"I hope that certain quarters would not speculate further on the issue," the Inspector-General of Police was quoted as saying by the New Straits Times, Dec 31 edition.
He also added that apart from the three, an agent who assisted in closing the deal was also arrested.
"All four of them have been released on bail. Three other agents have been identified as witnesses to facilitate police investigations," Musa said.
Now seriously, three low-ranking airmen took advantage of lax controls to send out RM100 million worth of engines out of a secure airbase for sale?
No one higher up? A brigadier-general was cashiered for incompetency, an unusual punishment for what passes off as the civil service in Malaysia.
The thing is, it probably takes a lot more brain power and audacity to simply walk out of an airbase with one, let alone two jet engines. The engines are not a small thing, physically and the scale of the theft.
Not that we are looking down on our airmen, especially those in the lower ranks. But it is an impossible theft just for the sheer chutzpah to even think of it, let alone go through with it.
Perhaps they are just simply thieves and just had the opportunity to steal anything, even jet engines. After all, the engines are spares for the F-5Es and only six out of 13 planes are working.
Perhaps this age of conspiracy theories and the two years it took to make the theft public have led Malaysians to be cynical about Musa's statement.
Perhaps the police took all that time to go beyond the three airmen and came up naught.
Perhaps, no matter how improbable, it is the truth.
Perhaps Musa is a fan of Sherlock Holmes?