Supari admits mistake in testimony about ‘faulty’ CCTV cameras

KUALA LUMPUR: ASP Supari Muhammad, who today resumed his testimony at the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia’s (Suhakam) public inquiry into Pastor Raymond Koh’s disappearance, said he made a mistake in his testimony yesterday when he said all the cameras along Jalan Bahagia were faulty.

He was responding to questions from the family’s lawyer Jerald Gomez about the Petaling Jaya City Council (MBPJ) CCTV cameras along the exit route taken by the pastor’s abductors.

Supari said his task force had informed him that the checks on the cameras were “negative”, which he assumed meant that the cameras were not working.

However, he confirmed that the CCTV cameras had indeed been working on the day of the incident.

“They were not spoilt, but there was no view of the vehicles or any suspicious activities recorded on the cameras,” he said.

“We viewed the footage on Feb 15 after viewing the CCTV footage from the houses, obtained by the family.

“Only then did we know what vehicles to look out for, but we couldn’t find any footage from the other cameras.”

Steven Thiru, another of Koh’s family lawyers, asked Supari if he still maintained that most of the CCTVs were faulty, to which Supari answered, “Yes.”

Thiru then asked Supari if he found it strange that most of the CCTVs were faulty, considering that Petaling Jaya was a city and the cameras were there to fight crime.

“Yes, most CCTVs were faulty.

“It’s not weird that they are faulty. I don’t know which cameras were working and which were not. I would have to check, one by one. I can’t remember all of them,” Supari said.

Thiru then asked Supari if he had checked all the cameras around the 3km radius of the last mobile phone ping from the pastor’s phone, which was in Taman Mayang.

To this, Supari said, “No.”

“There were 15 cameras around the area that we checked. Twelve cameras were working and three were not. We looked at the footage and there was nothing on it that was suspicious.”

Thiru asked Supari if the police had looked for any possible “dry run” by the abductors prior to the actual incident when they checked the CCTV footage.

“Yes, it is likely a dry run would have been carried out days or weeks before the actual abduction,” Supari said.

“We looked for it but we found nothing on the camera footage.

“We checked the MBPJ CCTV footage from the highways, but the footage from the cameras that were working was too blurry to make out any cars.”

The public inquiry is chaired by Suhakam commissioner and retired Court of Appeal judge Mah Weng Kwai, and includes Suhakam commissioners Prof Dr Aishah Bidin and Dr Nik Salida Suhaila Nik Salleh.

The inquiry will consider, among other things, whether the cases of Koh, activist Amri Che Mat, and Pastor Joshua Hilmy and wife Ruth, were incidents of enforced or involuntary disappearance, as defined under the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance.

Amri, 44, who co-founded charity organisation Perlis Hope, has been missing since Nov 24 last year.

His wife, Norhayati Ariffin, said witnesses saw five vehicles blocking the path of Amri’s car before he was whisked away, just 550 metres from their home in Bukit Chabang, Perlis.

Joshua and his wife, Ruth, meanwhile, were last seen on Nov 30 last year. A police report was lodged in Klang but the case was referred to Petaling Jaya police as the complainant said the missing persons lived in Kampung Tunku. -FMT