The lawyer, Shaharudin Ali, contended that Malaysia had not gone against a mutual legal assistance agreement with India nor any extradition treaty with India.
He said the mutual legal assistance agreement explicitly excluded extradition. “I also disagree with the notion that Malaysia has to blindly extradite any person named by a requesting state,” he told FMT.
On Saturday, criminal lawyer N Sivananthan had urged the government to honour the terms of an extradition treaty with India by deporting Naik to face allegations of promoting hate speech, and involvement in money laundering and terrorism-related activities.
Sivananthan, who is the first Malaysian to be a counsel with the International Criminal Court, told FMT that Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad was ignoring Malaysia’s legal obligation when Mahathir said Naik could remain in the country.
Shaharuddin said the extradition treaty between India and Malaysia would come into effect if criminal charges had been filed in India’s courts. “We repeatedly said we haven’t seen these yet,” he said.
Shaharudin noted that the Malaysian government, under Barisan Nasional previously and currently under Pakatan Harapan, had consistently turned down requests by India to send Naik home to face prosecution.
“This doesn’t mean Malaysia doesn’t know its treaty obligations,” he said, asserting his view that the charges against Naik were of a politico-religious nature.
In his view, it was perfectly legal for Malaysia to decline to extradite Naik, if Malaysia believed that India’s request was based on political reasons or if returning Naik would be unjust or oppressive.
“We support the stand taken by Mahathir, it appears to us that such stand had been made upon consideration of the relevant materials in possession of the government.”
On Friday, Mahathir noted that Naik was a permanent resident in Malaysia. He said Naik would not be extradited “as long as he is not creating any problem”. Naik met with Mahathir on Saturday in a brief, unscheduled meeting.