Pak Lah apologises to SBY, IGP Musa writes an apology to Donald, and Donald says sorry to ME?

matsola | I AM NOT PULLING anybody's leg here. He really did say sorry to me, Mat Salo.

A year ago, Pak Lah, as was widely reported in the Indonesian media, had personally telephoned Indonesia's president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to convey his deepest regrets. Not to be outdone, IGP Musa Hassan too had written a letter of apology that was delivered to Donald at his Jakarta hospital bed via Malaysia's very own ambassador. And Donald, in turn, had actually said "sorry" in an SMS to me yesterday, the 19th of July.

Well, apologizing for not being able to meet for a private interview, that is.

To refresh your memory, a year ago Pak Donald was beaten senseless by Royal Malaysian policemen outside his hotel in Nilai,Donald_1 Negri Sembilan, an incident that provoked outrage and threatened to derail Malaysia's and Indonesia's "fragile" bilateral relations. Pak Donald had been attending a Karate event as a Ketua Wasit (chief referee), and was out minding his own business when he was unceremoniously dragged away to be shown Malaysia's special brand of hospitality that ended with him in a hospital emergency ward. Courtesy of the Royal Malaysian Police of course, currently once again being brought to scrutiny: Altantunya, Anwar, girl-raped-in USJ police station, Gemas. Ge-mas? Isn't that in Negri Sembilan too? Well, the State Police Chief was quoted as saying that in no way was transferring the alleged corrupt cops meant that there were "guilty". Yeah, sure.

Was Donald mistaken for an illegal alien? Who knows? I'm not even certain if the perpetrators were ever brought to book; or were they just given a slap on the wrist? Or a nudge and a wink to for "teaching an Indon a lesson"? A subtle thumbs-up? After all, blowing up tourists with deadly C4 explosives is not beyond them.... selanjutnya.