Thursday, April 24, 2008

Police not dropping molest case against ex-minister - NST

KUALA LUMPUR, Thurs: April 24, 2008 By : V. Shuman

Police will not drop investigations into molest allegations by a woman against a former minister, despite the retraction of the report by the victim. City police chief Datuk Muhammad Sabtu Osman said the police will continue investigating the case and are waiting to talk to the former minister, who is currently overseas.

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

Muhammad Sabtu said police were currently interviewing eyewitnesses and would forward the investigation papers to the deputy public prosecutor’s office as soon as the investigation was completed, whatever the outcome.

The 30-year-old woman had, on Wednesday, retracted a report she had 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 had 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.

The report 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 the woman cannot withdraw the report, according to law.

“A person who lodges a report cannot at his whim and fancy withdraw same 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,” he said in a statement.

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former minister should be taken if the contents of the report were found to be true, even though the report had been withdrawn.

“However, if the probe reveals that the contents of the report are false, then the woman should be charged with giving false information to the police.”

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