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High Court told of kidnapping cops
KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 29, 2024: The High Court heard today that Bukit Aman cops allegedly abducted Perlis Hope co-founder Amri Che Mat.
For 18 years, since the abduction of Amri and Pastor Raymond Koh, the police did absolutely nothing to solve the case.
Why? Your answer is as good as anyone.
No News Is Bad News reproduces below a news report on today’s High Court proceedings:
Cops who allegedly abducted Amri also involved in Pastor Koh’s disappearance, court told
Faisol Abd Rahman says he heard of this connection from the wife of the activist.
Ho Kit Yen - 29 Feb 2024, 6:47pm
Perlis Hope co-founder Amri Che Mat went missing in 2016, and Pastor Raymond Koh has been missing since 2017.
KUALA LUMPUR: The co-founder of the NGO Perlis Hope said he was told by Amri Che Mat’s wife the activist was “abducted” by officers from Bukit Aman in an operation similar to that of a missing pastor.
Faisol Abd Rahman told the High Court that Amri’s wife, Norhayati Ariffin, said she was informed of her husband’s alleged abduction by a man believed to be a police informant.
According to Faisol, Norhayati claimed that the man, identified as Shamzaini Daud, had spoken to her in 2018 about Amri’s disappearance. Amri went missing in 2016.
Faisol testified that Shamzaini had allegedly said Bukit Aman officers abducted Amri and that the same group of officers were involved in Pastor Raymond Koh’s disappearance.
He said he then enquired about Shamzaini from a friend who was a policewoman.
“She told me that Shamzaini was attached to the state’s Special Branch,” he said, adding that he subsequently obtained Shamzaini’s phone number from his contacts.
Faisol said he sent a WhatsApp message to Shamzaini some time in May 2018, reminding him of a hadith verse about speaking the truth.
“I texted him on the hadith which said, ‘Speak the truth even when it is bitter’,” he said, when testifying in the lawsuit by Amri’s family against the police and the government.
However, he did not say whether Shamzaini replied to his text.
To a question from senior federal counsel Zetty Zurina Kamaruddin on whether Shamzaini was the one who could verify the contents of his conversation with Norhayati, Faisol answered in the affirmative.
Norhayati filed a suit against the police and the government over the conduct of the authorities’ investigations into Amri’s disappearance.
Amri left his home in Kangar at about 11.30pm on Nov 24, 2016. His car was found at a construction site at the Bukit Cabang Sports School early the next morning.
Suhakam held a public inquiry into his disappearance between 2017 and 2019. It subsequently concluded that Amri was a victim of an enforced disappearance carried out by the state, specifically by the Special Branch.
In 2018, Shamzaini denied Norhayati’s claim that the police were involved in Amri’s disappearance. He told the Suhakam inquiry he was prepared to swear by the Quran on the matter.
Meanwhile, another friend of Amri’s, Aizat Zahid, testified that Shamzaini attempted to contact him on May 13, 2018, but he did not answer the phone.
He said Norhayati also informed him that Shamzaini visited her on that day and spoke about Amri.
Lawyer Surendra Ananth, appearing for Amri’s family, informed the court that they were trying to get the special task force’s report on Amri’s disappearance.
Last week, the government abandoned its appeal to challenge another High Court decision that ordered Putrajaya to release the classified report to Norhayati.
The hearing before judicial commissioner Su Tiang Joo continues on March 20 and 21.
Thursday 14 December 2023
When the truth does not matter to Malaysia's federal governments
No News Is Bad News
For image info, go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=PaN16qOaX0k (The mysterious disappearance of Malaysia’s pastors)
When the truth does not matter to Malaysia's federal governments
KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 14, 2023: Since Merdeka (Independence) 1957, Malaysian politics and federal governments (governments are elected once every five years) have shamelessly displayed selective persecution and prosecution..
Sixty-six years after or more than six decades after, the status is still the same - there is absolutely no interest to solve or establish the truth of certain cases nor expose the real culprits behind the cases.
The reasons for such an attitude is only best known to politicians, those in power and the governments, even Anwar Ibrahim’s so-called Madani Unity Government.
No News Is Bad News refers to the following high profile cases:
> TO date, questions still remain unanswered regarding the “disappearance” of Raymond Koh, Ruth Sitepu and Joshua Hilmy following accusations of the trio attempting to convert Muslims to Christianity in 2017;
> THE murder of Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Anthony Kevin Morais whose body was found cemented in an oil drum in an oil pal estate in Perak in September 2015. He was the DPP in the Attorney-General's Chambers of Malaysia and Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC). On Nov 20, 2017, six people were found guilty of the murder Morais the accused were former Army pathologist Colonel Dr R. Kunaseegaran, 55; R. Dinishwaran, 26; A.K Thinesh Kumar, 25; M. Vishwanath, 28; S. Nimalan 25; and S. Ravi Chandaran;
> THE death of Teoh Beng Hock, then 30, (a Malaysian journalist and political aide to then Selangor DAP’s state execvutive councillor Ean Yong Hian Wah) who was found dead on July 16, 2009 in the Malaysian Anti-Graft Commission office in Shah Alam while in custody;
> THE murder of pregnant Mongolian French translator and model Altantuya Shaariibuu who was shot in the head by police commandos and her body blasted to smithereens with military-grade C4 explosives on Oct 18, 2006;
> THE 1983 murder of Bank Bumiputera Malaysia Berhad officer Jalil Ibrahim in Hong Kong. During the trial of Malaysian Chinese businessman Mak Foon Than alleged that Jalil was murdered by George Tan for the Jalil's attempt to block a loan to Carrian Group. George Tan Soon-gin is a former Hong Kong businessman known for role and involvement in Carrian.
Pastor Koh was forcibly abducted on Feb 13, 2017 in a military-style operation that took less than 40 seconds. Almost seven years later, he's still missing. His car has never been located.
No News Is Bad News reproduces below a news report on Pastor Koh’s wife breaking down while testifying in court today:
Pastor Koh’s wife breaks down while testifying in court
Susanna Liew says she and her children have been suffering from depression for the past six years.
Ho Kit Yen - 14 Dec 2023, 2:28pm
Susanna Liew, the wife of missing Pastor Raymond Koh, said she filed a suit against the government and police because she wanted justice.
KUALA LUMPUR: The wife of missing pastor Raymond Koh broke down in tears at the High Court when speaking of her family’s struggles since her husband’s disappearance six years ago.
Testifying before the court, Susanna Liew said she filed a lawsuit against the government and the police because she wanted to see justice is served.
Liew said she and her three children have been suffering from depression since Koh’s disappearance.
“It was really sad and disappointing because the police have not been forthcoming about their investigations (into Koh’s disappearance).
“They made my life difficult and kept interrogating me.”
Convinced that Koh is likely dead, Liew said she needed to know what happened to her husband and hoped the “perpetrators” would be brought to justice.
She said her family had not been able to get any closure in the matter despite the passing of six years since the pastor’s disappearance.
“The right of my family members to receive the body of the person who has been ‘forcefully disappeared’ has not been respected and protected,” she said.
In 2020, Liew filed a lawsuit against the police, the IGP and a number of former high-ranking police officers over her husband’s disappearance.
The list includes former inspectors-general of police Khalid Abu Bakar, Fuzi Harun as well as former principal assistant director of the Special Branch’s social extremism division, Awaludin Jadid.
The others named in the lawsuit are former criminal investigation department chief Huzir Mohamed, former Selangor CID chief Fadzil Ahmat, and police officers Supari, Khor Yi Shuen, Hazril Kamis, Shamzaini Daud and Saiful Bahari Abdul Aziz.
Liew is seeking damages over Koh’s disappearance, as well as for the authorities to be held liable for his unlawful abduction and for misfeasance in public office.
No police action since 2011, says wife
Replying to a question by senior federal counsel Nurul Farhana Khalid, Liew said that until today she did not know who issued Koh a death threat prior to his disappearance.
Liew had earlier testified that Koh had in 2011 received two bullets and a note written in red ink. She said the threat came shortly after the Selangor Islamic religious department (Jais) raided a fundraising dinner held at the Damansara Utama Methodist Church on Aug 3, 2011.
Asked by Farhana whether it was possible that the package had been “wrongly sent to your house”, Liew answered in the negative.
She testified that following the raid, 12 Muslims who attended the dinner were asked to appear at Jais’s office.
The authorities did not come again to the church premises for any purpose after that incident, she added.
Questioned on her claim that Awaludin had spoken at two seminars in 2015 and 2016 about the proselytisation of Muslims, Liew said she did not attend the events but relied on media reports for the information.
Farhana told the court that the defendants intend to call Awaludin to testify at the trial.
The hearing continues before judicial commissioner Su Tiang Joo on May 27, 2024.
Pain of not knowing killing us, say families of missing trio
Pastor Raymond Koh was abducted under suspicious circumstances, and Ruth Sitepu and her husband Joshua Hilmy disappeared, several years ago.
Nothing official has been heard about Pastor Raymond Koh, missing since early 2017, and Ruth Sitepu and her husband Joshua Hilmy, who disappeared several months earlier.
PETALING JAYA: When Susanna Liew’s husband left their house that fateful Monday in 2017, she did not know it would be the last time she would see him.
Liew recalled that she was supposed to take some food supplies to a friend that day but had been too busy in the morning to do so, at which point her husband offered to help.
“He always said ‘I love you’ before he went out the door; he always said ‘I love you’ to me or my children, so those were his last words.
“I have not seen or heard from him since.”
Her husband is Raymond Koh, a pastor who was abducted in early 2017 under suspicious circumstances. In 2019, Suhakam (Human Rights Commission of Malaysia) concluded after a public hearing that he was the victim of “enforced disappearance” at the hands of the Special Branch, amid accusations he was attempting to convert Muslims to Christianity.
Liew said she was thrust into a state of panic and shock when he did not return home, made all the worse when she went to the police station to report his disappearance only to be subjected to an interrogation herself.
“It has been a very difficult and challenging four-and-a half years now for our family because of the uncertainty. We have practically no news and no updates from the police or the government on the status of the investigation,” she said.
For the family of Ruth Sitepu and her husband Joshua Hilmy, who disappeared in late 2016, it is much the same story.
“We got the news from my elder brother’s son in Malaysia, Harry Sitepu,” Ruth’s brother Iman explained from his home in Jakarta.
“He was really close to Ruth and Joshua, and he told us the news that he had lost contact with Ruth and that the house was empty. We waited for months thinking maybe they had moved somewhere, to a different country maybe, but Harry was really certain they had gone missing. As time went by, we got more suspicious of their disappearance.”
It was only when they saw videos online detailing Koh’s disappearance that they began to suspect their sister had met a similar fate, although official investigations were ongoing. As in the case of Koh, there were claims the pair might have been involved in converting Muslims.
“As a family, we’re very, very sad. Until now, it isn’t clear where she is. We are also disappointed with the government here in Indonesia,” he said, claiming that it had not given his sister’s disappearance sufficient attention.
Iman and the family believe Ruth and Joshua are still alive, because “we as a family still feel that connection with her, we don’t have that feeling inside that she is dead”.
Liew shares the same hope for her husband Koh, and it is her “hope and dream” that they will one day be reunited.
“My family and I and our friends, some of us have had dreams that he is still alive and as long as we do not see his body we will believe that he is not dead, and I will continue my efforts to speak out and do all I can to get him and the others released.
“Wherever Pastor Raymond is, God is with him, whether he is alive or whether he is martyred, he is a hero to us because he believed in his convictions and he lived it out.”
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