VIP OVERSEAS, ANOTHER DELAYING TACTIC

It seems to be a popular tactic in order to avoid or delay subpoena, summonses, arrest, ISA, police investigations and any embarrasing situations is to go for Umrah or overseas trip. According to the Police, it's not up to them to drop the case, but the Attorney General Chamber has received her statutory declaration. It is now the acid test for police integrity and the legislative's impartiality whether to proceed with the case. Let us wait and pray for the outcome.
Read on..

Probe into molest claim to continue

NSTonline

KUALA LUMPUR: Police will not drop investigation into a molest allegation by a woman against a former minister, despite the victim's retraction of the report.

City police chief Datuk Muhammad Sabtu Osman said the police would continue investigating the case and were waiting to talk to the former minister, who was currently overseas.

"It is not up to us (police) to drop the case. We will record a statement from the VIP when he returns to find out what transpired," he said yesterday.

Muhammad Sabtu said police were interviewing eyewitnesses and would forward the investigation papers to the deputy public prosecutor's office soon.

The 30-year-old woman had, on Wednesday, retracted a report she lodged last week alleging molest by the former minister, in his 50s.
The woman's lawyer, Datuk Shafee Abdullah, said his client had given him a statutory declaration to retract the police report, claiming that the whole situation was a misunderstanding.

The statutory declaration has been handed over to the Attorney-General's Chambers and the police.

In her report on Friday, she alleged that the former minister hugged her last Thursday while she was at work in a cigar shop at a five-star hotel in Kuala Lumpur Sentral, Brickfields.

It was lodged at the Brickfields police headquarters.

Muhammad Sabtu said police may recommend that the woman be charged with lodging a false report if the investigation leads to this.

Meanwhile, lawyer Karpal Singh said yesterday the woman could not withdraw the report, according to the law.

"A person who lodges a report cannot at his whim and fancy withdraw it by way of a letter of statutory declaration. A person who lodges a report runs the risk of lodging a false report.

"He is bound by the contents of the report."

Karpal said action against the former minister should be taken if the contents of the report were found to be true, even though the report had been withdrawn.