Cops grill PI Bala in Bangkok, praise his courage

In the third part of the 'mystery interview' with private investigator P Balasubramaniam which appeared on Malaysia Today , he revealed how the Malaysian police questioned him in Bangkok.

The focus was on the first statutory declaration.

He said the police had asked him which of the two statutory declarations was true and when he replied the first, one of the officers shook his hand and commended Balasubramaniam on his courage.

Below are excerpts from the interview.

Where did you go once you landed in Bangkok?

Deepak was supposed to arrange for someone to meet us at the airport but there was no one there. As I was feeling very tired, I hired a taxi to take me and my family to the Shangri La hotel. We checked into the hotel and we went to sleep.

Did anyone contact you while you were at the Shangri La hotel?

No, because no one knew where we were and I did not have a Thai SIM card so I could not use my handphone to call anyone.

What did you do the next day? (July 5)

I took my wife and children shopping to buy some clothes as we did not have much with us. I also managed to buy a Thai SIM card and communicated with ASP Suresh to inform him where I was.

Deepak had told me that all communication should be through ASP Suresh and that his brother, Rajesh, would be handling everything for me from now on.

What did you do the day after that? (July 6)

The Shangri La management informed me the hotel was full that night due to a pre-booked wedding function so we had to leave. I then left and checked into the Hilton hotel nearby with my wife and children.

Rajesh had arranged for one of his contacts in Bangkok to assist me and my family in obtaining Indian visas. This contact was a Thai woman who came to the hotel to collect all our passports and the visa fees from me.

What happened on July 7?

I received a call in my room from a Special Branch officer. He was calling from the lobby and asked to see me. I then went down to meet him. I recognised him as he used to be a colleague of mine when I was with the Special Branch. He was the liaison officer from the Malaysian Embassy in Bangkok.

What did you both discuss?

He asked me whether I would give permission for the Malaysian police to record a statement from me and if I was agreeable, he would inform KL about this. I asked him to wait while I called ASP Suresh to inform him about this development.

Did you call ASP Suresh?

Yes. ASP Suresh told me exactly what to tell the police interviewers. He wanted me to avoid any mention of the involvement of Deepak, Dinesh and himself.

So what did he tell you to say?

In short, he basically told me to tell the police that after I had made public my first statutory declaration, I felt remorse and wanted to retract it so I decided to call a lawyer called Arunampalam, whom I was supposed to have met through my PI work, and arranged to meet him at the Lotus restaurant next to the Nikko Hotel along Jalan Binjai.

When I met up with him at this restaurant he advised me to retract the first statutory declaration and that he would draft a second one for me to that effect. I was supposed to say that I went to his office with him where he prepared the second statutory declaration which I signed and that I went to the Prince Hotel the next day with him to release this statutory declaration to the press.

This is what I was told to say to the police when they recorded my statement, according to ASP Suresh.

What did you do next?

After discussing this with ASP Suresh, I informed the Special Branch officer from the Malaysian embassy that I was agreeable to my statement being recorded, so this officer informed KL and told me he would come and pick me up from my hotel the next morning and take me to the Malaysian embassy. In fact, we went out for a meal together that evening.

Were you picked up the next morning?

Yes, this SB officer came to the hotel the next morning and drove me to the Malaysian embassy where we arrived at about 9.00am.

At about 9.30am, three police officers arrived. They had apparently flown to Bangkok from KL the evening before once they had received confirmation that I was prepared to allow them to record a statement from me.

Did you recognise any of these police officers?

Yes, there was ASP Muniandy from the Commercial Crimes Division of Bukit Aman, another Indian officer and a Malay officer, whose names escape me at the moment.

How did they greet you?

They were all very pleasant to me. ASP Muniandy asked me which of the two statutory declarations was true and I said the first one. He then shook my hand and told me I was a very brave man.

Did they record your statement?

Yes. They questioned me for about six hours. They did not seem to be interested in my second statutory declaration and concentrated their questions in relation to my first statutory declaration.

They wanted to know who was involved in it and how I was led into making it.

I explained everything to them from the time I met my lawyer Americk Sidhu in a pub one night with ASP Suresh, M Puravalen and Sivarasa Rasiah in April or May 2008 up to the time of my first press release.

ASP Muniandy was the officer asking all the questions while his colleague recorded my statement.

Did they comment on anything you told them?

No. I just repeated what ASP Suresh had told me to tell them about the circumstances which prompted me into affirming the second statutory declaration and they recorded all of it.

Related reports

Part 5: 'I was told Rosmah was happy with my retraction'

Part 4: PI Bala - From Bangkok to Kathmandu to Delhi

Part 3: Cops grill PI Bala in Bangkok, praise his courage

Part 2: PI Bala reveals his final hours in M'sia

Part 1: Bala was in town, now on Youtube

More questions on PI Bala's 'immunity'

Why didn't the cops arrest Bala?

Bala's first statutory declaration

Bala's second statutory declaration