The video of the former Prime Minister of Malaysia, Datuk Seri Najib Abdul Razak (DSN) walks out of Al Jazeera interview became viral and became the concern of many readers.
If we analyse the walking style of DSN as compared to previous years, he reduces the swing of his hands when he was walking into the hall. This indicated that he has a lack of confidence or he feels uncomfortable when he is entering the room. Even if he seemed stable emotionally, the stress level can be identified from the speed of him sitting down after the handshake with the interviewer.
Initially, the interviewer (Mary Ann Jolley – 101 East Reporter) was holding hands as a polite gesture to welcome the guest.
Through the image above, she applied an extended handshake. She is trying to keep a distance with the person. By using this gesture, the lady can have a professional handshake and keep a distance between them.
At 0:23, DSN was being asked about his reaction after the election. Before answering the question, he gave a contemptuous smile to express his inner emotion. At 0:28, he mentioned that the loss was due to two main reasons. He shook his head during that time. It indicated that up to the time of the interview, he could not accept the loss of his party.
In the beginning of the conversation for several minutes, DSN sat with his left hand holding the right-hand posture. Here, he was trying to freeze his upper body during the conversation. He still didn’t feel comfortable of the conversation and he was holding back from the conversation. The indication is congruent with the gesture of laying back tightly in his seat.
At 0:44, DSN felt angry when he talked about the promises of the current government. This can be observed through his eyes wide open and his eyebrows are being pulled down close together and the inner corners going down towards the nose, causing the forehead to furrow.
At 1:03 after nodding his head, you can observe the licking the lips gesture. It showed the nervousness or element of deception. When a person gets nervous, his or her mouth becomes dry easily. Unconsciously, the person would start to lick the lips as a mean to create saliva.
At 01:11:47, he was being asked for the propaganda claim that was mentioned by DSN. When listening to the questions, he was looking to the left. This showed that he was trying to recall and remember some scenarios. However, before answering the questions at 01:29:37 – 1:30:30: (for 0.1 seconds), he felt extremely tense. Hence, he moved his body forward and backwards. The movement of forward and backwards become more significant when he started to answer the questions at 1:31:08 – 1:31:37 (less than a second). In addition, his gesture is also shown at 1:17 where he licked his lips one more time.
When he answered the statement, it is not true (during 1:33), DSN was trying to nod his head. However, the inconsistency in the timing of verbal and nonverbal created a gap for us to investigate the truthfulness of the statement. However, during 1:51 he even shook his head to give us a hint that he himself also cannot accept the fact of the statement he had given before and after the head shake.
After justifying the source of the fund and returning of the fund, at 2:02:10, you could observe a slight contempt smile and the muscle contraction of the contempt smile remained clear (indicated with an arrow). This is a sign of deception that the person felt happy that the interviewer somehow believed what he said. At the same time, psychologically DSN thought that “why the person is so “stupid to believe his statement”.
Comparable changes in his eye expressions between 2:02 and 2:03
Immediately, he was confronted by the interviewer. As a result, his facial expression changed to anger in less than 1 second. DSN became angry because he found out that the answer that was given was not accepted by the interviewer.
At 2:31, DSN sat in the stable hand gesture. This gesture showed that he is analytical in general. However, the body language slip we could observe between 2:26:00 and 2:26:83, he tapped his finger 2 times in less than 1 second. This indicated that he felt nervous and not confident when he gave the answer to the sources of the money. The gesture to have a small tap of his finger is observed again between 2:27:80 and 2:28:27 and he gave the same nervous signal. The level of nervousness increased by observing the fast speed of finger rubbing between 2:32:27 and 2:33:40.
Between 2:43:80 – 2:47:77, when DSN was confronted with the statement the source of money is from Jho Low, his rate of eye blink increased. This could be an indication of lying as the liar had to keep thinking about what they were going to say because the person needed to think more and thus cognitive load increase.
During 3:03, DSN was trying to have a little tap of fingers at fast speed. This is a negative nonverbal cue to show frustration and nervousness when he answered the questions. The more interesting nonverbal inconsistency is observed during 3:34 when he answered, “Sure, I wanted to know…” DSN shook his head during this statement. This gave another deception indication of his statement.
Before answering the questions about the authenticity of the letter from the Saudi Prince and the associate of Jho Low, at 4:50 – 4:52, DSN moved forward and backwards again. He was trying to move his body as a substation and a replacement of the stress level. Again, between 5:11:90 to 5:11:57 (0.7seconds), he tapped his finger 2 times again. This is a small gesture of clapping hands as if it looks like the expression of “Hurray and Success” gesture.
When he was asked about his relationship with Jho Low, the first 7:31:00 he looked to the left trying to recall. However, his eyes betrayed him again during 7:32:80 when he was trying to use his imagination to create an answer. This is a clear sign of deception. In addition, he applied parroting techniques of deception by repeating the statement, “My relationship with Jho Low…..”. He repeated the statement of the interviewer because he was trying to buy time for him to come up with the best answer. At the same time, DSN was also comfortable with his own answer that he leaned forward and backwards again during 7: 47.
During 8:05, the stress level of DSN continued to increase. You could observe that DSN rubbed his fingers. DSN applied finger rubbing to substitute his level of stress with a gesture that was not easy to be detected.
Stay tune with Humanology for you to know the real story of the pink diamond, the gifts and analysis of other parts of the video.
DSN became more nervous between 8:24:67 and 8:25:77 because we could observe clearly that he repeatedly applied finger rubbing during the interview. His gestures showed that as if he was challenging the public if action could be taken against him. In addition, he was still very confident he would be okay with the charges.
During 8:37, DSN leaned forward and backwards with the close lips smile when he recommended the public to not only focus on Jho Low but to get others who are involved in the activities because it involved international figures that should be questioned and investigated. However, during 8:39, DSN moved his body slightly and could be obviously seen from his shoulder. From this nonverbal cue, it indicated that he had disbeliefs towards his own statement. The statement was given with the objective to deceive the analyst to increase the scope of the investigation.
You may compare the pictures captured when discussing on different issues. The first picture was captured when he was discussing on the promises of the 7:17. When he was confronted on the source of money that was benefited by DSN during 8:53, you can observe that he was angry and it was clearly seen on his forehead.
The anger of DSN increased by 9:41 when he was trying to defend himself on the topic of the gift received. He even applied the palm down to control the situation and to stop the interviewer from interrupting.
He was continuously attacked with the source of money to purchase the pink diamond. He was trying to explain, but the facial expression of the interviewer triggered his anger that was clearly shown – 10:42 when his eyebrows were pulled to the nostril muscle.
When answering the question about the purchase of a diamond, he rubbed his fingers continuously between 10:39:63 – 10:40:87 slowly. This showed that he felt relieved and satisfied towards his answer and he strongly believed that the interviewer would buy in the answer. However, he still felt some inner fear when answering these questions. As a result, he tried to hide his inconsistency through hand rubbing gesture.
During 11:22 he took a deep breath when he was listening to the explanation that he should know the value of the jewellery.
Reviewing the same scene again, when he was giving a statement, there was some truth in the statement, “It was presented as a gift” during 10:34 in the video. However, between the duration of 11:07:27 and 11:08:87, DSN nodded his head. This is another body language leak that needed further investigation that he knew about the value of the jewellery. Another significant body language leak that DSN might know the value of the diamond because during 11:23:17, when he answered, “I really do not know …”, before the start of the statement, he nodded his head and followed by the shaking of his head that showed the consistency of the statement. It was a cue of deception.
DSN further explained about “knowing” of the value of the diamond. From between 11:29:53 to 11:35:37, DSN didn’t have any eye contact with the interviewer. In nonverbal communication, this could be explained by the concept of look away or eye avoidance. When a person feels guilty or want to avoid the topic, the best method is to apply the look away.
When DSN explained the statement, “as the head of the government, we received the expensive gift….” This statement is genuine and true. We could observe that he started to feel comfortable and the movement of the hand became natural. The statement between 11:40 – 11: 57 were true and there was no element of deception.
The statement that was given until 12:23 – 12:30, he said, according to the knowledge he had, he didn’t hide or conceal any information during this period. However, he felt stressed to keep on being questioned on this topic. We could observe that he licked his lips during 12:23:83.
The statement that was given until 12:23 – 12:30, he said, according to the knowledge he had, he didn’t hide or conceal any information during this period. However, he felt stressed to keep on being questioned on this topic. We could observe that he licked his lips during 12:23:83.
When he was being questioned about his son’s investments and lifestyle, the statement of “do not know” caused the anger of the interviewer. He further explained that he did not know the source of the loan.
During this statement, as a nonverbal analyst, we could not confirm any cues of deception. However, we could observe that his stress level had increased and he licked his lips again by 16:07:60. Could the stress level increase due to story creation or DSN really felt stressed with the duration of the interview? According to nonverbal theory, when lying, people tend to experience severe dry mouth. As a result, they may frequently lick their lips. However, we could not confirm if any deception was involved in this statement.
DSN felt annoyed when the interviewer did not focus on the topic that should be discussed such as on the development of the national economy.
He applied his palm down to stop the questions from the interviewer during 16:53:47. The interviewer changed topics and asked about other allegations towards him, especially in the case of Altantuya.
During 18:42:13, he raised up his voice with anger to repeat the statement denying his involvement in the murder case.
After completing the statement, his anger subsided within 6 seconds. A real anger and agony would normally last long. Since the angry emotion could be subsided within 6 seconds, it is something that needed further investigation. Anger and tears were two important weapons applied in deception.
DSN applied the palm down instruction method when he mentioned, “I am absolutely innocent about Altantuya’s case”. However, can you see a change of nonverbal gesture of his hand? Let’s do a comparison between three pictures in different timing during the interview.
The baselining of DSN in term of his palms, there was a gap between his fingers when he communicated with others. However, when he was mentioning about the statement, “I am absolutely innocent about the Altantuya’s case” his palm gesture changed. It showed that there was a sign of a change of emotion. Further investigation is needed to study this statement. In nonverbal, it is known as the red flag of communication.
DSN stood up and wanted to walk out of the room after requesting the interviewer (for the second time) to focus on the topics of the nation’s economy. From 20:02 – 20:40, DSN felt confident and proud towards the previous government’s contribution.
The interviewer continued to bring up the topics on Jho Low and 1MDB. DSN just felt annoyed and walked out of the room.
Source: Al Jazeera
