Forced to disappear but not forgotten
Title: Where is Pastor Raymond Koh
Authors: Stepen Ng & Lee Hwa Beng
Publisher: Semai Maju Sdn Bhd
Price: RM35.00
BOOK REVIEW | In my travels over the years, even when on holiday, I never miss opportunities to do networking and meeting with fellow journalists. In one of my forays in the late 80s, I met a young journalist who was very much into the arts – poetry and drama taking precedence over his profession.
I had met Richard Zoyza when I was part of a cricket team which played a series of friendly matches with the media in Colombo in the late Eighties. He was one of the many journalists I was to befriend, but I took a special interest because he was connected to Malaysia, or rather Malaya.
His maternal grandfather, Manocasothy Saravanamuttu, was the editor of the now-defunct Straits Echo – the first English newspaper in this part of the world. To cricket aficionados, he captained Penang and the then Straits Settlements teams.
Richard had never met his grandfather, but talked at length on journalism, freedom of the press and human rights.
In February 1990, the tragic death of Richard made news all over the world – he was kidnapped and murdered by the police. A group of police officers had entered his house in downtown Colombo and took him away in front of his mother.
Two days later, his body was found – washed up on a beach with a broken jaw, burn marks and a bullet through his head...
