Josiah Emmanuel Peter, 25, the third witness who was called to testify again, submitted a box of documents belonging to Joshua comprising certificates, documents, email exchanges and photographs.
Josiah and his sister had lived with the couple before they went missing. His father, insurance salesman Peter Pormannan, was the first witness in the inquiry.
He said the documents were important since Joshua was a Malay pastor.
However, he had initially testified that he was not worried about their disappearance since the couple had a history of leaving home for two months.
“We thought the same would happen.”
When Josiah and his sister left the house in April 2017, he said they took the documents for safe-keeping since the house would be left empty.
Asked why the documents were not submitted to the police when he was called in to give his statement, he said he felt apprehensive about doing so.
“I was uncertain whether to give it to the police as (I didn’t know whether) they would handle the documents properly. Knowing that the pastor and (his) wife were involved in religious activities, I was uncertain as to how to expose this information.”
Josiah said he was more concerned about the Malay pastor being a Christian, and was unaware if Joshua was baptising Malay-Muslims as part of his evangelism. He had also testified that he was unaware of any threats made towards the pastor.
However, when going through some of Joshua’s documents, he came across emails addressed to the pastor dating back from 2015. “They had some threatening words,” he told the inquiry, adding that he realised then Joshua could be in danger.
A few of the email exchanges were from the email address “[email protected]” who signed himself off as “Khairy Jamaluddin”. One of the emails read: “Don’t blame me if you get caught by them. I have already carried out my duty in informing the pastor.”
The emailer also asked Joshua to rethink his beliefs, asking him to “think carefully” before he regrets his “negative attitude that has threatened his life”.
Joshua and Ruth were last seen on Nov 30, 2016.
In early March, another witness, Selvakumar Peace John Harris, had claimed that Rembau MP Khairy Jamaluddin had warned Joshua to leave Malaysia in several emails.
Harris also said these emails were authentic,and even alleged that the former youth and sports minister “was behind” the pastor’s disappearance. However, he failed to produce any evidence.
Khairy later strongly denied the allegations, saying he did not know Joshua or the witness and had never communicated with the pastor through email or other forms of communication.
The public inquiry began on Feb 18 but was suspended due to the movement control order on March 18. It resumed today.