Surveillance cameras caught the abduction of Malaysian Pastor Raymond Koh in broad daylight in February of 2017. The cameras showed that around 15 men in seven vehicles kidnapped the man in about 40 seconds. In 2019, a report came out from the Maylasia’s Human Rights Commission that showed the pastor’s abduction was a part of an enforced disappearance by state agents.
A judge from the Maylasia’s Kuala Lumper High Court ruled in a civil suit that the country's police are responsible, reports The Christian Post. According to the ruling, the government to pay a fine totaling almost $7.5 million, but that is going up by $2,500 per day, retroactively, until Pastor Koh or his body is located.
Todd Nettleton of The Voice of the Martyrs says that it is almost miraculous.
“The judge agreed that the police were responsible for the abduction. He said in his ruling that they were acting under orders, so it was not some rogue officer off doing his own thing,” informs Nettleton.
Nettleton explains that a judge ruling for a Christian in an Islamic country is almost unheard of. No one knows if Koh is still alive after almost 9 years. The judge also gave Koh's wife Susanna an original award of around a million dollars because of legal costs and damages.
“The judge ordered the police to reopen the investigation and to report in to the attorney general every two months the progress on the investigation,” says Nettleton.
Nettleton says that Malaysian Christians of Chinese origin – which is Pastor Koh – are given some leeway to hold a non-Islamic faith, unlike indigenous Malaysians, who are Muslim by law and may not convert. The police, however, are under Muslim control.
“They answer to the government and, I believe, to the Ministry of the Interior or Internal Affairs. I don't know exactly how the sort of structure of the authority is, but they wield a lot of power in that country,” states Nettleton.
