Task force report on Pastor Koh tampered with, lawyer claims

 

FMT:

Task force report on

Pastor Koh tampered with,

lawyer claims

Ho Kit Yen

-23 Sep 2024, 04:14 PM

Jerald Gomez tells the High Court the copy of the report produced by the government was covered with watermarks which made it unreadable.

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Susanna Liew, wife of missing Pastor Raymond Koh, is suing the police, the inspector-general of police and several former high-ranking police officers over his disappearance more than seven years ago.

KUALA LUMPUR: 

Lawyers representing the family of Pastor Raymond Koh in their lawsuit against the government and the police have complained of not being able to read the contents of a task force report on his disappearance, alleging that the document had been tampered with.

Lead counsel Jerald Gomez told the High Court the document was unreadable as its pages were covered with watermarks. He also said various photographs tendered as exhibits were distorted.

“We do not agree that the defendants (the police and government) have fulfilled the court’s order on Aug 15.

We want the government to produce the original report without any tampering,

 he said.

Last month, the court ordered the government to give Koh’s wife, Susanna Liew, discovery of the task force report.

Liew had filed a lawsuit in 2020 against the police, the inspector-general of police and several former high-ranking police officers over Koh’s disappearance. She wants the authorities to be held liable for his unlawful abduction and for misfeasance in public office.

Gomez also complained that the watermarks contain the name and identity card number of a solicitor, which he said should not appear on the document.

It has the effect of intimidating our legal team member who received the report and represents Madam Susanna,

 he added.

The lawyer said both task force chairman Abdul Rahim Uda and Zamri Yahya, one of its members, should make themselves available to be cross-examined on the report’s contents.

In response, senior federal counsel Nurul Farhana Khalid told the court that the document produced had been photocopied from the original version and had not been tampered with.

She said she would bring three 

clean copies

 of the report for use at the hearing tomorrow.

The home ministry is preparing the copies now,

 Farhana added.

The hearing continues on Tuesday before Justice Su Tiang Joo.

Both Rahim and Zamri are scheduled to testify.

An earlier inquiry conducted by the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam) had concluded that Koh and activist Amri Che Mat were victims of enforced disappearances carried out by the state, specifically by the Special Branch.

Following that finding, a special task force was set up by the home ministry to investigate the commission’s findings.

Neither the home ministry nor the task force has publicly released the report despite repeated calls for them to do so by various parties, including by Suhakam and several other NGOs.

The report has been classified as a government secret.