CHENNAI: Will the real Malaysian fugitive Michael Soosai please stand up? In a dramatic twist of events, a lawyer representing the alleged fraudster has claimed the person detained by Indian police last year was not the notorious fugitive wanted by Interpol, but an Indian national.
“He is Indian, it is stated on government records. We can prove it in court. If he is a Malaysian, why hasn’t the Indian police charged him with violation of the Passport Act?,” M Shreedhar, the advocate presenting the suspect told Bernama in Chennai.
The police in Coimbatore claimed they arrested Soosai, Malaysia’s most elusive fugitive last August, at a hotel in Chennai, along with his wife and three children.
Indian police initiated his arrest after several Indians alleged the suspect had duped them off thousands of ringgit and a sizeable quantity of jewellery after promising high-salaried executive jobs in multinational companies.
The suspect, who used Andhra Pradesh as his base of operations, had been moving around with several pseudo names such as Karunaraj @ Rajasekaran @ GK Raj @ Dharmaraj.
Even in the Central Prison Puzhal’s document, Soosai’s name was listed as Karunaraj, along with the other aliases, and his home address was stated as Andhra Pradesh.
Three months ago, he was transferred from a Coimbatore prison to the Central Prison in Chennai.
Shreedhar said Karunaraj owned a PAN card (Indian tax card), Indian driving licence and that his three children had Indian birth certificates — all indicating that he was an Indian national.
“It is a (case of) mistaken identity, Karunaraj is not Michael Soosai. Michael Soosai is dead in Malaysia. There are lot of loopholes in the case, he will be acquitted,” added the lawyer.
However, the Coimbatore police in its latest affidavit (Feb 14, 2011) stated that probes revealed the accused was a Malaysian by the name of Michael Soosai (MyKad: 630308-07-5073) and travelled with a Malaysian passport (A11314136).
Soosai is wanted in Malaysia for several high-profile cases involving white-collar crime.
He is also implicated in the murder of a Malaysian in Tamil Nadu in 2004. — Bernama
but he departed from the scene after Malaysian police mounted pressure on him.
At the height of the Malaysian police ‘heat’ on the fugitive, Soosai had reportedly challenged the Bukit Aman police, particularly former inspector-general of police Tan Sri Musa Hassan, to “catch me if you can” (arrest me).
Last Tuesday, the Madras High Court had handed over the suspect’s three children, earlier under the government’s custody, to their Indian mother, Rajeswari alias Jayanthi, who was released from Coimbatore jail. — Bernama