Security guard in bank murder has no criminal record

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Mohd Mokhtar consoling one of Ho’s family members. — Bernama photo

JOHOR BAHARU: A security guard who ran amok and stabbed a bank officer to death and injured another at a bank in Taman Molek here yesterday does not have a criminal record.

The 44-year-old man who was remanded for a week to facilitate investigations into the murder, tested negative for drugs.

Johor police chief Datuk Seri Mohd Mokhtar Mohd Shariff said the suspect who began work at the HSBC branch in January last year, did not have a firearms licence.

“He was assigned for static guard duties at the bank’s building and parking area,” he told reporters after visiting the murdered HSBC bank officer Ho Chin Tau’s 34-year-old widow who is five-months pregnant with the couple’s first child, and family members in Tampoi here yesterday.

The couple had been childless for five years.

In the 3.30pm incident on Friday, Ho, 33, sustained stab wounds in the face and chest while his female colleague, 54, was slashed in the face when a security guard ran amok and attacked them.

On the mental state of the security guard, Mohd Mokhtar said the matter was still under investigation by the police and the hospital authorities.

He said a special team headed by Johor CID chief Datuk Hasnan Hassan was formed to investigate the case, adding that the state police requested Bukit Aman police to lend a helping hand.

“The probe will involve the bank’s closed-circuit television cameras, the suspect’s home and the security company which employed him, bank manager and its staff,” he added.

In a related development, Mohd Mokhtar said he would hold a meeting with 14 security companies in the state on Monday.

Meanwhile, the murdered victim’s father, Ho Guan Bee, 62, declined to comment except to say that he arrived from Tawau, Sabah yesterday, upon receiving the tragic news.

The suspect’s octogenarian father, when met at his house in Bandar Baru UDA, said his son had been a loner of late and engaged in minimal conversation with other family members, sometimes talking to himself.

“Yesterday, there were no drastic changes in his behaviour before he left for work … but I noticed that of late, he had turned into a loner and sometimes talked to himself.

“It (such behaviour) worries the rest of the family and we even tried to help him through traditional treatment,” he said, declining to be identified. — Bernama