'Siti Kasim aggressive, obstructed Jawi officers at dinner'

A Federal Territory Islamic Religious Department (Jawi) officer told the civil court that lawyer Siti Kasim acted aggressively in obstructing the religious authorities from raiding a private transgender dinner in Kuala Lumpur in 2016.

Akmal Nadzim Abdullah’s testimony today was to counter Siti’s (above) lawsuit over Jawi’s alleged wrongful arrest and unlawful confinement of her at the event at the Renaissance Hotel on April 3 nearly eight years ago.

However, in August 2020, a separate Kuala Lumpur Magistrates’ Court acquitted and discharged the outspoken activist on the charge of obstructing a public servant from Jawi from carrying out official duty at the event.

During the hearing of Siti’s civil action before the Kuala Lumpur High Court, Nadzim was engaged in a contentious exchange with the plaintiff’s counsel Saha Deva A Arunasalam.

Saha grilled Nadzim over his testimony at the magistrates’ court criminal trial, which allegedly did not show Siti’s conduct amounted to obstruction of public servants from carrying out their duties.

The Jawi officer disagreed.

Identification checks ‘necessary’

“The plaintiff was obstructing (Jawi officers’) duty by provoking, shouting with a loud voice, being aggressive when not complying with Jawi enforcement officers including me, shouting and committing provocation to the extent that others present in the hall (at Renaissance Hotel) refused to cooperate with enforcement officers,” Nadzim told judge Su Tiang Joo.

Nadzim disagreed with Saha’s contention that the Jawi enforcement officer acted beyond his powers by closing the entrance to the dinner hall because the attendees there included both Muslims and non-Muslims.

Saha: You must decide beforehand who is Muslim and who is not rather than stopping (individuals to check their religious status).

Nadzim: I disagree. To determine the religion of a person (attending the transgender dinner), I needed to inspect their identification cards (by requesting from individual attendees).

When Saha contended that Nadzim would not have the power in a hypothetical scenario to demand the lawyer show his identification card if the counsel was at the dinner hall that night during the raid, the Jawi enforcement officer disagreed.

However, Nadzim agreed with Saha that the officer was part of a 16-man Jawi enforcement team which was obstructed from carrying out their duty by lone individual Siti.

Nadzim also disagreed with the lawyer’s contention that he kept changing testimonies in court.

The hearing before Su continues this afternoon as well as tomorrow.

In 2019, Siti filed the writ of summons against Jawi as well as the Federal Territory Islamic Religious Council, the minister in the Prime Minister’s Department in charge of religious affairs, and the federal government.

Siti claimed that the defendants had perpetrated misfeasance of public office and subjected her to false imprisonment as well as violated her fundamental rights under the Federal Constitution.

According to the statement of claim, Siti claimed she was subjected to false imprisonment between 10.30pm on April 3, 2016, and 2.30am on April 3, 2016.

She alleged that the unlawful confinement began when 14 Jawi enforcement officers blocked the exits of the ballroom, preventing anyone there, including her, from leaving.

Senior federal counsel Nik Mohd Noor Nik Kar appeared for the government as well as the other defendants.

Jawi monitored hotels

Meanwhile, during re-examination by Nik Mohd Noor later this afternoon, Akmal Nadzim said Jawi received a telephone complaint about the event a month in advance on March 2, 2016.

However, he explained that the religious authorities at the time did not have specific information on the venue of the event in Kuala Lumpur and had contacted several sources, including multiple hotels, in the nation's capital.

He explained, however, that the hotels were generally uncooperative and they were forced to resort to monitoring all the suspected hotel venues prior to the night of the event on April 3.

He said that Jawi officers on stakeout outside the Renaissance Hotel during the daytime hours of April 3 have spotted several transgender individuals coming one by one to the hotel, which tipped them off as the venue of the event.

“From the stakeout (pemantauan), we obtained information that there would be a ‘Pertandingan Ratu Cantik Mak Nyah’ to be held at the Renaissance Hotel, and in the afternoon, there were several participants comprised of transgenders gathering at the hotel.

“But no action could be taken yet at the time as the transgenders were not dressed like women or behaved like women,” Akmal Nadzim said.

He would resume his testimony when trial continues tomorrow morning. - Mkini