Pages

Friday, July 4, 2008

Lawyer: First SD made voluntarily

KUALA LUMPUR, July 5 (Bernama) -- Private investigator P.Balasubramaniam, who was involved in the controversy over the statutory declaration (SD) concerning the murder of Mongolian woman Altantuya Shaariibuu, has been reported missing since Friday together with his wife and three children.

Balasubramaniam's nephew, R. Kumaresan, 27, accompanied by lawyer N. Surendran, lodged a police report on the disappearance of his uncle and his family at the Brickfields District Police Headquarters, here at 5pm Saturday.

Kumaresan said he failed to contact his uncle after Balasubramaniam held the media conference at a hotel here, Friday morning.

"I tried to contact my uncle almost 10 times but failed. Finally at 6pm yesterday, I decided to go to his house and found that Bala's car was there. However, no one was at home," he told reporters after lodging the police report.

He said he had made the police report because he feared for the safety of Balasubramaniam and his family, especially the safety of his wife and children, two boys and a girl aged between five and 11.

"Previously, this thing (disappearance) had never happened as we always keep in touch because I am very close to them," he said.

When asked by reporters whether Balasubramaniam and his family were in hiding, Kumaresan said: "I'm certain they will not hide without reason except if their lives were threatened."

An English daily, New Straits Times, Saturday reported that checks carried out at Balasubramaniam's house in Rawang Friday revealed that there was no one at home and neighbours had said that the family had left in a hurry early Friday morning in their other car.

Friday, Balasubramaniam had retracted his allegation that Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak had a relationship with Altantuya in his SD dated July 1 which was publicised on Thursday.

The private investigator, who is one of the witnesses in the Altantuya murder trial, said that all allegations in the earlier SD were inaccurate and untrue and it was made under duress, and he had made a new SD Friday retracting the allegations against Najib.

0 comments:

Post a Comment