SUHAKAM INQUIRY | Detailed immigration records for missing pastor Raymond Koh are a state secret subject to the Official Secrets Act 1972 (OSA), the Human Rights Commission (Suhakam) inquiry into his disappearance heard today.

Last week, Suhakam commissioner Mah Weng Kwai had requested to know that if Koh had, prior to his disappearance, been on the Immigration Department’s “suspects' list” and had his movements monitored.

Today, the department’s deputy director for security and passports, Hamid Momong said he could not produce the list, admitting that even he had no access to the information.

“When we wanted to access to see if he (Koh) was oh the list, but before I could access anything, it showed that the information was an official government secret and therefore I am bound by the OSA. The information also is under Section 16(A) of the OSA.

“Therefore, I can’t do anything and can’t make any comments.

“[...] Even if I could access it, I am unable to reveal it. It is a secret,” he said at the Suhakam headquarters in Kuala Lumpur this morning.

Hamid added that he did not know who had classified the list.

Section 16(A) of the OSA states that a public official charged with certifying any information as an official secret “shall not be questioned in any court on any ground whatsoever”.

In response, Mah instructed both police observer R Munusamy, who is also the Sentul district police chief, as well as lawyers for the Koh family to clarify if Suhakam had access to information that was under OSA.

“All parties please check the law whether, for the purposes of this inquiry, it (the list) can be declassified.

“Please check whether section 16(A) overrides the inquiry and (any) court proceedings,” he said, to agreement from both parties.

Hamid previously confirmed that Koh had not been blacklisted from leaving the country but said he could not rule out if the latter had been on the department’s “suspects' list” because he had not inspected it.

Persons on that list can either be banned from travelling; or be allowed to travel but have their records taken down at immigration checkpoints. The records are then handed over to government agencies that requested them.

Lawyers for the Koh family previously said that the pastor and his wife Susanna Liew had been stopped multiple times at immigration checkpoints between August 2011 and June 2012.

Earlier, the inquiry was shown travel documents by Peter Chong (photo), a social activist who previously claimed to have been abducted in Hatyai, Thailand in connection with Koh’s disappearance.

Chong was unable to produce his expired passport and several documents requested, and was requested to do so as soon as possible.

On Feb 13 last year, Koh was abducted from his vehicle in broad daylight by a group of men in a what appeared to be a professionally executed operation.

Aside Mah, today’s proceedings were presided over by Suhakam commissioners Aishah Bidin, and Nik Salida Suhaila Nik Saleh.

Suhakam is investigating if Koh’s disappearance, as well as that of three others, were “enforced or involuntary” as defined by the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (ICPPED).

Malaysia is not a signatory to the ICPPED, which was adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2006.

Enforced disappearance is defined as the arrest, detention, abduction or any other form of deprivation of liberty by agents of the state or by persons, or groups of persons acting with the authorisation, support or acquiescence of the state.

The inquiry will resume this Fri, Sept 7.