SUSANNA Liew has asked again for the special task force report on the disappearance of her husband Pastor Raymond Koh who went missing five years ago.

Liew said it has been three years since the task force had completed the report, which has yet to be made public.

Her family will hold a candlelight vigil on the 5th anniversary of Koh’s disappearance on February 13. Koh vanished in 2017.

The event will be held at the Council of Churches.

“So far we had not heard anything from the authorities on any developments in their investigations.

“Also there is no news from the special task force that was set up by former Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin to look into the report which was prepared by the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam) after a public inquiry,” she told The Malaysian Insight.

Liew said the report was supposed to have been released in December 2020.

“It’s coming on five years and the families (including that of missing activist Amri Che Mat) are getting angry at the non-action by the authorities and the government.”

In 2019, then home minister Muhyiddin ordered a special task force to look into Suhakam’s findings.

The task force was given six months from June the same year to do the job.  

In February 2020, Liew filed a suit against the police and the government over Koh’s alleged abduction by state actors.

“We heard from our lawyers that the trial for our case is expected to be heard in December this year.

“We want the police and government to be accountable for what has gone wrong with the four missing persons,” she said, adding that the other missing were Pastor Joshua Hilmy and wife Ruth Sitepu.

Last week, Suhakam ended its public inquiry into the disappearance of Joshua and his Indonesian wife Ruth. The panel’s findings will be announced soon.

Despite the lack of action from the authorities, Liew said that she has no ill feeling or bitterness towards the police and Special Branch.

“I’m just angry they are taking such a long time to solve this (missing persons issue).

“We are getting impatient because we cannot have any closure and we have this feeling that we can’t move on.

“We don’t know if the victims are dead or alive. We don’t know what has happened to them.”

Liew said that she will be reaching out to Segambut MP Hannah Yeoh and Petaling Jaya MP Maria Chin for their help. 

“I will send a letter to both the MPs requesting their assistance.”

In September, the government refused to make the report available on the grounds that it was classified under the Official Secrets Act (OSA).

In November, Surendra Ananth, a lawyer acting for Amri’s wife Norhayati Ariffin, said the classification of the report under the OSA is just one of a series of stonewalls their client had encountered since she filed a civil suit in 2019.

Surendra said he did not believe there was a legitimate or reasonable reason to classify the report as an official secret.

CAGED seeks transparency

Meanwhile, Citizens Against Enforced Disappearances (Caged) spokesman Rama Ramanathan said the group will continue to insist that the report must be released.

He said the task force submitted their report to Muhyiddin when he was home minister and he buried it, as did his successor Hamzah Zainudin.

Rama said Amri’s family had asked for the report for discovery in their suit against the government.

“According to a statement from the family, the secretary of the task force said in a sworn document that revealing its contents would put national security at risk.

“This compels us to speculate that the task force was unable to exonerate the Special Branch for its complicity in Amri’s disappearance and could not overturn Suhakam’s evidence-based conclusion.”

Rama said that this provides striking support for the widely held belief that Malaysia is a police state and that the cabinet runs the country to the extent permitted by the police.

“It appears the tentacles of the police cartel run long and deep. We note that a member of the task force, whom we pointed out has a conflict of interest, is now the head of the special branch.

“This is what happens when police ‘investigate’ themselves.

“We have previously called for the government to reveal the report, just as recommended in the Suhakam panel’s reports on Amri and Koh.”

In August last year, Suhakam had also called on the government to make the report public.

“Suhakam notes that the government had established a task force in 2019 to look into the findings from the public inquiry, and calls for the report of the task force to be made public so there may be some closure for those seeking answers to what had occurred.”

Koh was abducted by masked men in Petaling Jaya, Selangor, on February 13, 2017. Amri disappeared on November 24, 2016 after leaving his home in Kangar, Perlis.

A public inquiry conducted by Suhakam concluded that the duo were abducted by the Special Branch from the federal police headquarters, in a case which Suhakam described as enforced disappearance.

An enforced disappearance (or forced disappearance) is the secret abduction or imprisonment of a person by a state or political organisation, or by a third party with the authorisation, support, or acquiescence of a state or political organisation, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the person’s fate and whereabouts, with the intent of placing the victim outside the protection of the law. – February 5, 2022.