Karpal, a man with a great sense of humour - Tim Donoghue

Veteran journalist Tim Donoghue, who wrote the biography of DAP chairman Karpal Singh said the Tiger of Jelutong was a man with a great sense of humour.

“Karpal Singh that I knew was a man with a great sense of humour, and the road trip from KL to Penang in his Toyota Alphard was one that I have done with him so many times. And I could picture the scene. Michael will be at the back, attending to his every needs, Karpal would have been joking," he said when contacted by Astro AWANI.

He said he had first met Karpal in 1986 when he was based in Hong Kong and had ever since, follow closely the long and distinguished career of the man who was widely dubbed as the best criminal and constitutional lawyer in Malaysia.

Donoghue who was on a road trip to North Island, New Zealand said that he came to know of the sad news this morning via Twitter and his heart goes out to the family of Karpal Singh for their tragic loss.

“My heart goes out to Gurmit Kaur who is a great lady. She has backed up Karpal through many trials and tribulations through the many years of marriage and there’s no doubt that Gurmit once again sees her family through this great tragedy," he said.

Donoghue also expressed his sadness over the death of Karpal’s aide, Michael Cornelius Selvam Vellu.

“Michael, his assistant was particularly poignant. Michael was a young man who literally gives his life for Mr. Karpal. He came from India and along with Gurmit, he worked 24-7 around the clock, to keep Mr. Karpal alive and well in the areas of the law and politics in Malaysia”

Donoghue also said the accident in 2005 which left Karpal disabled until the day he died, did not disable his motivation and strength to fight the good fight again.

“I think in the wake of his accident, as a 65-year old, outside of his home, he suffered a great deal of pain in that road accident. And he spend a year basically ‘licking his wounds’ in the wake of his accident, but he came back to fight the good fight again”

“But he was a man with a great sense of humour. He took on trials and tribulations of thousands. There were lives and deaths of thousands tribulations in many occasions And it was somehow ironic that Karpal went to his death himself after being convicted for sedition himself”

Donoghue is formerly a chief political reporter for the New Zealand Press Association and has worked as the association’s Hong Kong-based Asia correspondent; he is currently a journalist with The Dominion Post.

Donoghue had also covered the Operation Desert Storm in 1991 from the Middle East and the Aramoana Massacre in Otago in 1990, as well as the riotous 1981 Springbok tour of New Zealand.

He has been a regular visitor to Malaysia since 1986 when he began covering the drugs trafficking case of the New Zealand mother and son, Lorraine and Aaron Cohen. He first discussed the possibility of writing this biography with Karpal Singh during his visits at the Kamunting Detention Camp outside Taiping in 1988.

He has covered the first Gulf War from Saudi Arabia and travelled throughout the middle-eastern countries affected by the war zone. He is the author of three books including The Tiger Who Smiled (1990), which tells the story of how Karpal Singh helped the Cohens escape the gallows by the 'skin of their teeth'.

His biography on Karpal Singh – The Tiger of Jelutong, published last year, tells the astonishing story of this resolute and righteous lawyer and politician, who has surfaced as the gray eminence amid the diverse Malaysian opposition political parties.