The Malaysian Human Rights Commission concluded on 3 April that police officers were responsible for the 2017 disappearance of Pastor Raymond Koh.
The lengthy investigation showed direct and circumstantial evidence that Koh was the victim of ‘enforced disappearance by state agents’ involving Special Branch.
The retired judge who headed the Commission’s inquiry, Mah Weng Kwai, said that police were reluctant to cooperate, but that circumstantial evidence strongly pointed to police involvement. Mah said the three-member Commission had done ‘sufficient fact-finding’ to warrant a further government investigation, and that the onus was on the Government to prove that officers were not involved.
Koh’s abduction, and that of a Muslim man a year before, were similar in many ways. Both men’s cars were blocked by several four-wheel-drive vehicles. Koh was seized swiftly by men in black wearing masks and had been under direct surveillance prior to his abduction.
The Commission stated that it also expects to investigate the disappearance of Joshua Hilmi and his wife Ruth Hilmi, evangelists and converts from Islam. The Commission concluded that Koh was an individual ‘targeted by religious authorities and the police on allegations that [he was] involved in matters against Islam in Malaysia’.
Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said that the Government would investigate the Pastor Koh’s abduction if the Commission has evidence to support its conclusion that Special Branch was behind the abduction.
