THE Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam) has denied a request to subpoena three stakeholders to its public inquiry into the disappearance of Indonesian Ruth Sitepu.

The request was made by lawyer Audrey Pillai who is representing Sitepu’s family.

Pillai requested that Suhakam subpoena representatives from Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC), Maybank and Maxis.

She said MCMC needed to give evidence as to whether it can trace the origins of emails from Ruth and her husband, Pastor Joshua Hilmi.

“Also, a subpoena for the telco companies of both Joshua and Ruth’s numbers to trace details of calls made and received.

“And the manager of Maybank Ipoh Garden to give details of transactions in April 2017 after the couple was last seen,” Pillai told the inquiry today.

Suhakam Commissioner Hishamuddin Yunus said the commission will instead send out letters and wait for a response from the three entities.

“You can liaise with us through e-mails on the progress of the correspondence and we will inform the next course of action.”

Suhakam Complaints and Monitoring Group deputy secretary Simon Karunagaram said that there is no need to subpoena them for now.

“We will be sending letters to all three entities and await their response. Then if there is a need, we will call them to testify.”

Simon said that they had already contacted MCMC for a meeting last year.

“We had requested for a meeting and it was postponed because of (the) conditional movement-control order.  We will be calling them again.

“We will also be engaging with Maxis and Maybank.”

The inquiry is held to discover what had happened to Joshua and Ruth, who are suspected to be victims of an enforced disappearance.

In 2018, two years after their disappearance, Ruth’s siblings lodged a missing person’s report.

Ruth’s family hails from the fishing village of Nambiki in northern Sumatra, Indonesia.

International human rights laws define enforced disappearance as when a person is secretly abducted or imprisoned by a state or political organisation, or by a third party with the authorisation, support or acquiescence of a state or political organisation.

The Suhakam panel is chaired by commissioner Hishamudin and assisted by commissioners Jerald Joseph and Madeline Berma. – January 11, 2021.