MIRI: A magistrates’ court here yesterday remanded for three days three individuals, two of whom are policemen, under suspicion of extortion and illegally holding a cook captive.
Senior assistant registrar Md Syafique Md Hilmie allowed the remand application by investigating officer Insp Prakash Raj Subramaniam from the Miri Central police station.
In his application, Prakash said on April 15, a cook filed a police report claiming he had been held captive and extorted by a group of individuals.
In his report, the 26-year-old complainant said around 5am on April 15, when meeting up with a friend in an area behind Miri Stadium, a group of four men and a woman suddenly approached him.
The group entered the complainant’s car and one of them showed him a plastic package containing a white substance believed to be syabu, which they claimed belonged to the cook.
According to the cook, after the individuals introduced themselves as police personnel, they took him to a petrol station at Jalan Bintang to discuss his ‘release’, as they claimed he was involved in a drugs and cheating case.
After the cook denied the claim, the group asked him to give them RM10,000 and brought him to a bank at Boulevard Commercial Centre to withdraw the money.
Upon arrival at the bank, the complainant claimed he was beaten up and forced to withdraw money, which he said he did not have, and was brought to a hotel and held captive in a room there.
Around 11.30am that same day, the complainant told the group he wanted to go home to ask for money from his mother.
The individuals then brought him home, where he managed to ask his mother to contact the police. Before the police arrived, the individuals left the complainant’s house.
Acting on information received, around 12.20pm on April 17, a team of police from the Criminal Investigation Department detained two men, including one policeman, at the police flats here on suspicion of their involvement in the case.
Both suspects were brought to Miri central police station for further questioning. Around 3.50pm the same day, the police detained another policeman with the rank of lance corporal on suspicion of his involvement in the same case.