High Court sets Aug 25 to hear application by RMAF Sergeant

0

SHAH ALAM: The Shah Alam High Court yesterday set Aug 25 to hear an application by Sergeant N Tharmendran to quash a charge against him over the theft of two F5E jet engines.

The offence was allegedly committed in December 2007, at the Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF) airbase in Sungai Besi.

On Jan 6, Tharmendran was charged with stealing the jet engines while businessman K Rajandran Prasad, 37, faced a charge of helping him to dispose off the engines on April 30, 2008.

Another RMAF personnel, Mohamad Shukri Mohd Yusop, was charged with abetting Tharmendran.

Earlier yesterday, Tharmendran’s counsel N Surendran informed Judicial Commissioner Datuk Asmabi Mohamad that the case involved serious allegation that the applicant (Tharmendran) was tortured by RMAF officers.

He also told the court that a new witness would be brought for the case proceedings.

However, Asmabi replied: “You don’t tell me anything… file the affidavit first.”

She said Surendran needed to file additional affidavit as soon as possible because she needed to read it first while the prosecution also needed sometime to reply.

Meanwhile, outside court, Surendran told reporters that the new witness would testify there existed physical torture in RMAF investigations.

However, he said the person was eyewitness to physical assaults on other RMAF staff but not on Tharmendran, when asked by reporters whether the eyewitness actually saw Tharmendran subjected to physical torture.

In a previous media report, the RMAF denied that torture was used in its interrogation process and that it (interrogation) was carried out, according to procedure.

Surendran said he filed the application to quash the charge against Tharmendran on July 16, this year, and would file the additional affidavit to bring in the new witness, as soon as possible. — Bernama