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KUALA LUMPUR: Former youth and sports minister Datuk Mokhtar Hashim (pix), who passed away yesterday, was laid to rest at the Bukit Kiara Muslim cemetery.
Mokhtar, 78, a former Tampin member of parliament passed away at about 3.10am at the Ampang hospital.
Prior to his appointment as cabinet minister in 1980, he had served as parliamentary secretary of the Culture, Youth and Sports Ministry and then as deputy minister of Agriculture and Rural Development between 1972 and 1976.
He courted controversy when, in what can be said was one of the earliest politically motivated murders, he was convicted for the murder of then Gemencheh assemblyman Datuk Mohamad Taha Talib.
Mohamad Taha, then aged 49, was shot multiple times and killed opposite his house in Gemencheh, Negri Sembilan on April 14,1982, just days before the sixth general election.
He was at that time the state legislative assembly speaker.
Mohamad Taha and Mokhtar were reportedly involved in a power tussle for control of the Tampin Umno division, which resulted in the murder.
Mokhtar then aged 40, and four of his accomplices, were subsequently arrested for Mohamad Taha’s murder.
A ballistics report showed that the bullets that killed the politician were fired from Mokhtar’s handgun.
Mokhtar was charged for the murder and on March 6, 1983, the Kuala Lumpur High Court found him guilty and meted out the death sentence.
The following year, the death sentence on Mokhtar was commuted to life imprisonment.
Seven years later, a royal pardon by the Yang Di-Pertuan Agong secured his freedom in 1991.
