Sister: Siti Aishah was not enslaved

Siti Aishah Abdul Wahab not enslaved and looked physically, mentally and emotionally fine, said her sister after meeting her long-lost sibling.

KUALA LUMPUR: Siti Aishah Abdul Wahab, 69, who was one of three held captive by a Maoist couple in London for 30 years was not “enslaved”, her sister said today after visiting her.

Kamar Mahtum said her long-lost sister Siti Aishah looked “healthier than me” despite reports of sordid modern-day slavery that had shocked Britain.

“No, she can’t be, she looked so well,” the 73-year-old said in a telephone interview after returning to Malaysia.

Kamar, who met Siti Aishah for 90 minutes at a location six hours from London on Thursday night, said her sister was physically, mentally and emotionally fine.

“She promised to return to Malaysia after the investigations were complete in about nine months,” she said from her home in Johor.

Siti Aishah came to Britain as a high-flying student in 1968 but turned her back on her family after joining a radical left-wing group.

The other women held by the couple are believed to be the daughter of a World War II code-breaker who also became a communist and a 30-year-old who has spent her entire life inside the Maoist “collective”.

British police interviewed the three women for the first time last Wednesday as fresh details of their secretive commune emerged.

An Indian-born man, B Aravindan, 73, and his Tanzanian wife, Chanda, 67, were arrested last week over accusations of keeping the women as “slaves” in a south London flat.

The couple was believed to have led a small Marxist splinter group in the 1970s.

The women were “freed” on Oct 25 after one contacted a charity that usually deals with forced marriage and honour-based violence.

The husband and wife have been freed on bail pending further investigations.

Kamar said Siti Aishah seemed to have no regrets about joining the “sect” but “was probably influenced by the man’s hypnotic power”, referring to Aravindan.

Police believe the women were brainwashed and possibly beaten, but not sexually abused.

It appears that they were occasionally allowed out of the house, and detectives are working to understand the “invisible handcuffs” that were used to control them.

– AFP