Waiter claims GOF personnel helped gangsters beat him up

by Ng Ai Fern, Fz.com

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  A screen grab of the said video depicting the men and the victim, seen crouching near the table.

KUCHING (March 18): A coffee shop waiter who claimed he was assaulted by gangsters in the presence of a policeman will hand over the CCTV recording of the episode today.

 

The 29-minute long video clip, recorded at a Batu Kawa coffeeshop depicts a tall man, alleged to be a General Operation Force personnel, slapping the victim – a man of a smaller physique.

 

The clip also showed that when two other men punched the victim, the alleged GOF personnel was also present.

 

“They also took six handphones and asked us to pay RM500 for each handphone and an angpow in order to get our handphones back,” the 21-year-old victim Andrewson Ngalai Tandang told a press conference today.

 

The incident took place last Thursday when Tandang and a few colleagues went to a karaoke pub near the coffeeshop where they worked.

 

Tandang said two men stopped him outside the outlet at around 4am when he was on his way home. After the said ordeal, Tandang received four stitches and suffered severe head injuries.

 

"I don’t know why (it happened). One of them held my hands at my back while the other man hit me with an iron bar.

 

Tandang said he escaped and rushed back to the hostel with his friends. However, his cousin Johnical, who came to his rescue, was left behind.

 

"The gangsters followed us to our hostels but we refused to open the gate. Then, a man claimed he was a policeman and asked us to open the door. 

 

"All seven of us in the house followed him to the coffee shop," Tandang said, adding that the man flashed his police badge.

 

Tandang said he could not recall his name other than that he spoke with a heavy Sabahan accent.

 

At the coffee shop, Tandang said he and his cousin were slapped and assaulted.

 

The video clip was aired to the media at the Sarawak DAP's headquarters.

 

He said they did not dare retaliate since the man claimed to be a policeman.

 

Tandang lodged a police report hours after the incident and said the policemen who took his statement also recognised the plain-cloth GOF personnel in the video.

 

DAP secretary Chong Chieng Jen said this was a serious incident where a police officer is claimed to have abetted with gangsters to threaten and assault common people.

 

"If this is covered up, people will lose their confidence in the police," he said, adding he would assist the victim to lodge another report as the involvement of the GOF personnel was left out in the first one.