SUHAKAM HEARING | The Human Rights Commission (Suhakam) public hearing on the disappearances of several activists and social workers took a 15-minute break today after one of the witnesses broke into tears.

Susanna Liew, wife of the missing pastor Raymond Koh, was being fielded questions regarding her reaction after Koh received a death threat in 2011, and started sobbing thereafter.

“That morning I remember I cried when I called my friend, because I felt it was getting dangerous. I even thought of migrating to Australia but my husband loves this country. He wanted to stay in Malaysia.

“So, we left the house temporarily. We stayed in another place for two months. A friend of ours let us stay at his place,” she said between sobs.

The hearing then adjourned from about 11am until 11.15am, after which the hearing resumed with Liew’s testimony.

The death threat was delivered to Koh’s and Liew’s home on Aug 23, 2011, and comprised a package containing two bullets and a strongly worded letter.

This followed a raid by Selangor Islamic Religious Department (Jais) on Koh’s charity Harapan Komuniti on Aug 3 the same year, over allegations that Koh was proselytising to Muslims.

The propagation of any religion besides Islam to Muslims is illegal under Malaysian law, and the allegation had been speculated to be the reason for Koh’s abduction on Feb 13.

Liew said that since the raid, Harapan Kommuniti had received “very negative publicity” including attacks by right-wing groups and politicians.

She told the inquiry that the charity had no religious affiliation, and Koh specifically told Harapan Komuniti volunteers during their orientation not to talk about religion.

The Suhakam inquiry was investigating Koh, activist Amri Chemat, Pastor Joshua Hilmy and his wife Ruth Hilmy’s disappearances and whether these are cases of enforced disappearances as defined by the International Convention for Protection of all Persons from Enforced Disappearances (ICPPED).

The convention was adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2006, but Malaysia is not a party to the convention.

It defines enforced disappearances 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 hearing is chaired by Suhakam commissioner Mah Weng Kwai, together with follow commissioners Aishah Bidin and Nik Salida Suhaila Nik Saleh on the panel. Liew is the hearing’s second witness.

At the hearing, Liew told the panel that the police had advised her not to speak to the media or attend candlelight vigils.

She said this was conveyed to her during a meeting with investigation’s taskforce head Fadzil Ahmad on March 6 and was reiterated by the then inspector-general of police Khalid Abu Bakar at a separate meeting on March 23.

She said Khalid had told her that, “This makes things difficult […] the abductors may go silent and it becomes tough to find them.”

Speaking of the March 6 meeting, Liew said Fadzil had told her that the police had collected photos of a few vehicles from a camera on an advertisement board near Jalan Persiaran Tropica.

She said she was shown the photos, which showed the Honda Accord that Raymond was driving, a black pickup truck, and a Toyota Unser.

“The number plates were very clear. When asked if these numbers had been traced, Fadzil told us (that) there were no such numbers in the car registration records, implying that they were fake,” she said.

She added that on the day Koh was abducted, she was at a friend’s apartment to help with babysitting. Koh had come over to collect belacan from her car to deliver it to a friend.

She said he also told her that he would be dropping by at Harapan Komuniti’s second office in Kelana Jaya. He was wearing a light beige polo shirt and grey pants at the time and driving a silver coloured 1990 model Honda Accord bearing the license plate ST5515D.

The vehicle, like Koh, is still missing.

The hearing will resume with Koh’s eldest son Jonathan’s testimony on Oct 30.