SUHAKAM INQUIRY | The investigating officer probing the disappearance of pastor Raymond Koh has denied that he had not done enough to keep Koh's family informed of the developments of the case.

Investigating officer Supari Mohammad said that even when the police made a breakthrough in the case in June, he only found out about the development through news reports, when the then inspector-general of police Khalid Abu Bakar announced it to the press.

“At first I didn’t know either. When it was announced, then I knew,” he said at the Suhakam public hearing today.

He was fielding questions from the family’s lawyer Steven Thiru, who repeatedly asserted that he had not done enough to keep the family updated on the progress of the investigation. 

Supari denied the assertion, pointing out that the family could have contacted him personally, and added that that there was no need to update them unless there had been a positive development in the case.

After news broke in June that photos, licence plates, and other items believed to be linked to Koh’s abduction were found among the belongings of a suspected smuggler shot dead by the police, Supari said he received a message from Koh’s daughter asking for details.

According to Supari, he told her that he had yet to receive any information.

Following his interrogation of the suspects arrested in the June shootout, he said he had told the family that the suspects were not involved in the abduction.

Supari also admitted that he had asked Koh's wife Susanna Liew about allegations that her husband had been proselytising to Muslims.

However, he denied being more interested in implicating Koh and his associates rather than finding the abducted pastor, saying that this was merely Liew’s perception.

Faulty CCTV cameras

On another matter, Supari clarified his statement yesterday that CCTV cameras near the site of the Koh’s abduction in Petaling Jaya were not working.

He said his task force had reported to him that the cameras were “negative,” which he took to mean that the cameras were not working when it, in fact, meant that the footage did not turn up any leads.

In many cases, the cameras were simply not pointed towards the roads. In the case of the Petaling Jaya Municipal Council’s cameras, he said that its resolution was only adequate for monitoring traffic and could not identify individual vehicles.

He promised to return to the hearing with more information on the CCTV footage in the police investigation, including those at toll booths leading away from the crime scene.

However, he cautioned that in his experience, criminals tend to avoid tolled roads.

The hearing, which is chaired by Suhakam commissioner Mah Weng Kwai, will continue at 2pm tomorrow.

The inquiry is seeking to establish whether the disappearances of four activists - pastor Koh, activist Amri Chemat, pastor Joshua Hilmy and his wife Ruth Hilmy - are tantamount to enforced disappearances, as defined under International Convention for Protection of all Persons from Enforced Disappearances (ICPPED).

The other members of the panel are commissioners Aishah Bidin and Nik Salida Suhaila Nik Saleh.