CITIZENS Against Enforced Disappearances (CAGED) has urged Home Minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail to reveal what action has been taken against those involved in the enforced disappearances of Perlis activist Amri Che Mat and pastor Raymond Koh.

CAGED wants Saifuddin to set up a task force to find Amri and Koh, who, based on findings by the Human Rights Commission (Suhakam), had been abducted by the Special Branch from the federal police headquarters in Bukit Aman, Kuala Lumpur.

“Investigate every implicated serving or retired (police) officer and charge him or her with the crime of abduction.

“Also work with, rather than against, the families,” CAGED said today. 

The statement comes a day before the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances.

On April 3, 2019, a public inquiry by Suhakam concluded that Amri and Koh, who vanished in 2016 and 2017, respectively, were victims of enforced disappearance.

The three-member panel unanimously concluded that the perpetrators were members of the Special Branch.

Koh’s family also has an ongoing civil suit against the police and government over the pastor’s enforced disappearance.  

CAGED also chided the Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC) for denying Amri’s wife’s limited access to the classified special task force report into her husband’s disappearance.

On May 9, High Court judge Wan Ahmad Farid Wan Salleh allowed Norhayati Mohd Ariffin’s application for limited access to the report, needed for legal action against the police and government over Amri’s disappearance on November 24, 2016.

However, Larissa Ann-Louis, a lawyer representing Norhayati, said the government and the police had filed to the Court of Appeal to prevent her from having access to the report.

CAGED said the AGC is acting for the defendants in the civil suits the families of Amri and Koh have brought against 13 parties, including the government.

“A High Court judge ordered the government to release the report to Amri’s family. 

“The AGC has appealed against the order. This is unjust since the defendants have information which the plaintiffs do not have.”

It said the withholding of the report was another layer of injustice to the cases, which were already stymied by cover-up attempts.

“The AGC is now mounting embarrassing challenges to the evidence being presented during the ongoing civil suit.

“Counsel (from the AGC) has suggested that the eyewitness who reported Koh’s abduction had lied. That a death threat Koh reported to the police wasn’t intended for him. That much of the evidence accepted by the Suhakam commissioners is unreliable.”

It also noted the authorities cannot say comments or action are impossible because the matter is in court. 

“We are asking you to respect the courts and work in parallel with them for justice. Do not use the courts as cover for failures.”

CAGED also said the AGC’s stance is an affront to parliament, which had empowered Suhakam to investigate the cases

“It is also an affront to Malaysia’s commitments to the United Nations, especially after seeking and winning membership to the Human Rights Council.

“Worse, it is the government pandering to the police, since senior officers who should be confronted with the maximum penalty for abduction (death sentence), roam free either in retirement or in office.

“We call on the government to do what no government to date has dared to do: demonstrate that the police too must abide by the law.”

CAGED added that on April 15, Suhakam also issued its report on the case of missing pastors Joshua Hilmy and Ruth Sitepu.

“Suhakam reported many serious failures in how the police handle cases of missing persons. We urge the home minister to reveal what actions have been taken in response.” – August 29, 2023.