IT is important to obtain the mobile phone call logs of missing Pastor Joshua Hilmy and his wife Ruth Sitepu to determine the mystery behind their disappearance, a lawyer for their family told a Suhakam inquiry today. 

As such, Philip Koh, who is representing the Sitepu family, urged the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia to request the phone records from Maxis Sdn Bhd. 

“The records are crucial, especially running up to the alleged dates they had gone missing. 

“I think there could be (phone records) linked to parties who are allegedly (involved) with the missing couple,” he said during the public inquiry into the missing couple.

Suhakam commissioner Hishamuddin Yunus said they have noted the lawyer’s request.  

“We understand the data can be retracted from seven years ago.

“The panel will deliberate and make a decision on where we will go from here. We want to leave no stones unturned,” said Hishamuddin. 

The inquiry today had requested the presence of three Maxis officers P. Saravana, Tan Lai Shing, and Lai Sau Ping to give their testimonies relating to the missing couple’s phone records. 

Suhakam officer Simon Karunagaram then showed the inquiry a letter from Maxis, which showed Ruth owning two pre-paid numbers and Joshua a single prepaid number with the telco company. 

The letter contained information that showed that Ruth’s phone numbers were deactivated in April 2017 while Joshua’s number was deactivated in February 2017. 

Saravana said that under Malaysian law, telcos are required to store customers’ calls logs and SMS records for seven years. 

“The call logs are stored for a period of seven years up to today. After that I can’t entirely comment on what happens to the data. 

“It could be kept or disposed of in a proper manner to ensure personal information doesn’t leak out.”

Commissioner Jerald Joseph then asked Saravana if Maxis had access to the texts from the couple’s SMS.

Saravana said Maxis doesn’t store that information. 

“It is the same for call logs. We only have the sender’s number, the receiver’s number and the time stamp,” he said.  

He added that Maxis’ information technology and infrastructure department manages the data storage. 

Hishamuddin asked how an agency would be able to retrieve the data. 

Saravana said he was not sure, but that all requests must go through the security, legal and infrastructure teams. 

“The infrastructure team will locate the data and transfer it onto a disk. It is tedious work. The longer the duration (request dates) the longer it will take. 

“To my knowledge if a request is made for previous call records for a month, then it will take two weeks to load that amount of data.” 

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

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

The Suhakam panel is chaired by Hishamuddin and assisted by commissioners Jerald and Madeline Berma.

Previously, another Suhakam panel, held similar inquiries into the disappearances of Pastor Raymond Koh and activist Amri Che Mat. 

After exhaustive investigations, the panel concluded that the Special Branch from the federal police headquarters in Bukit Aman was responsible for the disappearance of Koh, a Christian pastor, and Amri, a Muslim social activist. 

No one has been charged with the abduction of the two. 

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. – July 29, 2021.