The family of the missing Pastor Raymond Koh say they are in the dark over a government taskforce that is supposed to investigate his and Amri Che Mat’s enforced disappearances.
Koh’s wife, Susanna Koh, said that they had not heard directly from Home Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin following his announcement on May 23 that a special taskforce would be formed to look into the findings by the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam) on the disappearances.
Suhakam concluded that the police were likely behind the disappearance of activist Amri and Pastor Koh.
“We welcome the news that the reports of the honourable Suhakam commissioners will be taken seriously,” Susanna said in a statement today.
“We do not have any information beyond what has been reported by the media. Also, there is no formal statement by the Minister. Therefore, we do not know the task force’s terms of reference, composition, powers, etc. We can only say what we hope for.”
Susanna said her family hopes that the task force will “reopen and re-investigate” these enforced disappearances and not merely study the report as reported by some media.
“We hope the task force members will be announced soon and that the membership will include not only unbiased serving officers in the PDRM but also members of statutory bodies such as the Attorney General’s Chambers, the Bar Council and MACC as well as NGO representatives who closely monitored the Suhakam Inquiry.
“We hope a time-frame will be specified for the work to be completed and that it will include reporting to the families and to Suhakam at regular intervals on the progress as recommended by the Suhakam panel of inquiry.
“We hope the task force will have access to all evidence and intelligence collected by the PDRM, including investigation diaries, intelligence reports, investigation papers and CCTV footages which were not tendered by the PDRM during the Suhakam Public Inquiry.
“We hope that once the report is completed, the report on the findings of the task force’s investigation will be made available to the public as soon as possible,” Susanna said.
She pointed out that 69 days have passed since Suhakam published its reports, and the proposed task force has not begun its work.
“It is now over 847 days since Raymond disappeared and over 928 days since Amri disappeared. We hope it will not be many more days before Raymond and Amri are located and the perpetrators of the crimes against them are tried,” she added.