Rais mum over maid’s rape denial

Rais had come under weeks of attacks over the rape allegations. — WikiCommons

KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 10 — Datuk Seri Rais Yatim kept silent today over a former employee’s denial of reports claiming she had been raped while working for the information minister.

Last Friday, an Indonesian news portal reported the maid, formerly under Rais’ service, denying the minister had ever raped her in the eight years she had worked for him.

Today, Rais refused to comment when asked about the report.

“No comment. I have other matters to attend to,” he said.

The detik.com website reported that the Indonesian woman denied the allegations in a statement to four officials from the Indonesian Workers Protection and Placement Centre (BP3TKI) in Semarang.

National Protection and Placement of Indonesian Workers Authority (BNP2TKI) head Jumhur Hidayat told detik.com that the meeting with the woman was based on a report by BP3TKI, state news agency Bernama reported.

Bernama is under Rais’ ministry. The minister denied on Wednesday the allegations raised by political foes and bloggers.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak has also cast doubt over the claims, noting the alleged incident had reportedly happened in 2007 but only surfacing recently.

Rais’ denials came after several weeks of a whispering campaign that the claims were contained in US diplomatic cables leaked by whistleblower website, WikiLeaks.

However, no such documents were found on the WikiLeaks website.

Rais has been under pressure from some bloggers in the past few months, particularly over claims that his ministry abused a RM1 billion fund for netbooks meant for poor students.

The allegations have since been cleared. - Malaysian Insider