Media statement by Lim Kit Siang in Kuala Lumpur on Thursday, 31^st May 2012: 

Is Malaysia under rule of law or law of jungle?

Is Malaysia under the rule of law or the law of jungle where Radio Free Sarawak presenter Peter John Jaban can disappear for six hours after arrival in Miri this morning without anyone in authority claiming knowledge or responsibility?

I have just spoken to Jaban’s lawyer, Alan Ling, the DAP Piasau State Assemblyman in Miri, and he confirmed that he is completely in the dark as what to has happened to Jaban some six hours after he met him at the Miri Airport on his arrival from Kota Kinabalu.

Alan had just spoken to the Miri police less than an hour ago and he was again told that the Miri police had no instruction or was not in anyway involved in Jaban’s arrest or disappearance.

Jaban had arrived in Miri from Kota Kinabalu in an Air Asia flight at about 10.45 am and as the Miri police had assured Alan that there was no instruction for Jaban’s arrest, Jaban had left the airport for Miri town with the Miri PKR chairman Dr. Michael Teo.

On their way to town, three men in a Proton car stopped Teo and Jaban, and Jaban was taken away.

Six hours have passed and nobody knows what has happened to Jaban or he is, safe or otherwise – and whether the three men who took Jaban away were from the police specially dispatched to Miri to apprehend Jaban, and if so, why the Miri police have been kept completely in the dark.

Malaysia is under an international microscope in the government handling of the Jaban case as it will become an international scandal of the first magnitude if a person could just disappear into thin air for six hours after arrival at the Miri airport this morning.

The Home Minister, Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein and the Inspector-General of Police, Tan Sri Omar Ismail must be reminded that they are living not only in the era of information technology where information travels with the speed of light but also of global and not just national accountability.

Malaysians and the world expect them to immediately throw light on the whereabouts of Jaban as six hours are definitely enough time for the police authorities to come out with clear statement of Jaban’s whereabouts or an open admission that lawlessness in Malaysia have reached a new level where three persons completely uninvolved with the police or the government have abducted Jaban in broad daylight in Miri in Malaysia!

*Lim Kit Siang, DAP Parliamentary Leader & MP for Ipoh Timor