Senior federal counsel Nurul Farhana Khalid said the home ministry and police were served with subpoenas by lawyers representing the Koh family requiring task force chairman Abd Rahim Uda and member Zamri Yahya to appear in court.
“However, the ministry informed us that he (Rahim) is no longer under its purview, having completed his duty (as chairman).
“They do not know where he stays. It is for the plaintiff’s counsel to conduct a search to locate him,” Farhana said.
She also said Zamri, a former Bukit Aman Special Branch director, retired in 2022.
“We can assist to get Zamri’s address based on Bukit Aman’s records,” she said.
Koh’s family want Rahim and Zamri to be made available for questioning on the contents of the task force’s report.
Lawyer Jerald Gomez, appearing for the family, told the court he was served with clean copies of the report earlier today.
“We need to study its contents first, before we can proceed with the trial,” he said.
Yesterday, Gomez had complained that the copy of the report handed over to them previously was unreadable as it had been tampered with.
The court had ordered the government last month to give Koh’s wife, Susanna Liew, discovery of the task force report.
Gomez also said Liew’s son, Jonathan, was trying to locate a potential witness, Vee Yak a/l Ban Jong, to testify at the trial.
Justice Su Tiang Joo scheduled for proceedings to resume tomorrow, with the lawyers to furnish an update on the attendance of witnesses.
Liew had filed a lawsuit in 2020 against the police, the inspector-general of police and several former high-ranking police officers over Koh’s disappearance.
She wants the authorities to be held liable for his unlawful abduction and for misfeasance in public office.
An earlier inquiry conducted by the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam) had concluded that Koh and activist Amri Che Mat were victims of enforced disappearances carried out by the state, specifically by the Special Branch.
Following that finding, a special task force was set up by the home ministry to investigate the commission’s findings.
Neither the home ministry nor the task force has publicly released the report despite repeated calls for them to do so by various parties, including Suhakam and several other NGOs.