KUALA LUMPUR, May 19 — Sarawak-born Datin Seri Pamela Ling Yueh has been missing for more than a month now, but her lawyers will still go on today with her court bid to challenge her previous arrest and travel ban by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC).
Just two days before her disappearance, Ling on April 7 filed her court challenge at the High Court in Kuala Lumpur against the MACC and the Immigration director-general.
In a nutshell, Ling wants the court to cancel the arrest warrant used by MACC in her January 8 arrest; to be allowed to leave Malaysia to care for her three children in Singapore; and is claiming for at least around RM137,000 as compensation.
Here are the five specific court orders that Ling is seeking in her court case:
1. To quash the December 2, 2024 arrest warrant --- issued by the Johor Bahru Magistrates Court --- against her.
2. A declaration that MACC does not have powers to directly or indirectly prohibit a person from leaving Malaysia (except in the way stated in the MACC Act’s Section 44 and the anti-money laundering law’s Section 44(4) )
3. To order MACC to return her mobile phone to her;
4. An order to compel the Immigration director-general to allow her to leave Malaysia;
5. An order for compensation - For expenses spent up to the day of filing of court challenge: Two sums of S$20,401.14 (equivalent to around RM67,000) and RM70,000, or any part of these amounts;- For expenses for the period between lawsuit filing up to decision date, and general, exemplary or punitive damages: To ask the court to decide the amount payable.
As Ling’s lawsuit was filed as a judicial review application, she will first have to get the court’s leave or permission for her actual lawsuit to be heard.
High Court judge Datuk Amarjeet Singh Serjit Singh is scheduled to hear her application for leave for judicial review this morning.
The Attorney General’s Chambers is expected to object to only Ling’s bid to have the arrest warrant quashed through this lawsuit.
What Ling is asserting in her court challenge
Ling and Sarawakian businessman Datuk Seri Thomas Hah Tiing Siu, who will both turn 42 and 56 this year, had been married for more than 20 years.
Ling was living in Singapore with their three children, while Hah is based in Malaysia.
The eldest child aged 20 and diagnosed with autism undergoes treatment in Singapore for a rare medical life-threatening condition known as hereditary angioedema, while another child aged 18 diagnosed with dyslexia also undergoes treatment there.
Ling had in August 2023 filed for divorce in Singapore while Hah had in December 2023 filed for divorce in Malaysia.
Based on court papers, Ling detailed multiple events, including MACC’s obtaining of an arrest warrant on December 2, 2024, over her failure to comply with the agency’s October 29, 2024 order to appear at its Johor Bahru office the next day for investigations into a case.
The investigations were for a case involving her father’s business, which he said in court documents had been resolved after his late November 2024 payment of a compound sum offered by MACC.
In lengthy court documents, Ling asserts that the MACC’s October 2024 order was not served according to the law, and that she had not wished to accept the order and had taken it under protest from an MACC officer without acknowledging service.
According to Ling, Singapore authorities on January 8 carried out the arrest warrant by taking her into custody in Singapore, before passing her to MACC officers at the Malaysia-Singapore immigration checkpoint the same day.
On January 8, Ling said she was in handcuffs when taken to MACC’s Johor Bahru offices and confined, and remained in handcuffs when she was brought to MACC’s Putrajaya headquarters and was kept in the MACC lock-up overnight.
Ling said she was then remanded or further detained for three days from January 9 to January 11 to assist in the MACC’s investigations, and that MACC seized her phone and recorded her statement.
She was released from remand on January 11, with the MACC requiring her to pay RM35,000 as deposit and to report every month to MACC until investigation ends.
Apart from reporting to MACC every month, Ling said she had presented herself to the MACC to have her statement recorded on January 13, 15, 17, 22, 24, 27 and February 12.
Ling claims that she had shown up at MACC’s office on January 24 and was waiting to have her statement taken, when her husband allegedly approached her and claimed to have been told by MACC officers that the two should settle matters between them.
Ling said she later found out that MACC had successfully obtained a travel ban on her since October 2024, but asserts that MACC had acted unlawfully in getting Malaysia’s immigration authorities to stop her from leaving the country.
Ling asserts that immigration authorities had acted wrongfully and unlawfully by complying with MACC’s alleged unlawful direction for the travel ban on her.
Ling said her criminal lawyers’ January 24 letter to request that she be allowed to return to her children in Singapore received no response, while her same lawyers’ February 14 letter with a similar request upon her eldest child’s hospitalisation was refused by MACC.
She said there was no response to her civil lawyers’ March 24 letter to MACC to request a lifting of the travel ban.
Among other things, Ling in her court documents expressed her belief that the actual purpose of her arrest, remand and travel ban was to pressure her to resolve with her husband on her claims, including on assets in their marriage and on his alleged forgery of her signature on a disputed July 2023 share transfer document.
Claiming that MACC had allegedly abused its powers and acted beyond the powers it had under the laws, Ling asserted that MACC had no legal basis to apply for the arrest warrant and the remand order or to impose conditions on her January 11 release from remand.
The expenses she is seeking to claim in her court challenge include her hotel stays since there is a travel restriction on her, and the RM70,000 she has so far paid to criminal lawyers for matters such as opposing the remand application and to deal with the MACC.
She is also seeking general damages for MACC’s alleged unlawful arrest and detention of her during January 8 to January 11, and alleged emotional and psychological distress due to those actions and being allegedly unlawfully separated from her children who she said needs her care.
She claims to have been denied her constitutional rights to liberty and equal protection of the law under the Federal Constitution’s Article 5(1) and Article 8(1) respectively.
April 9 disappearance en route to MACC
Ling disappeared on April 9 after her e-hailing ride to MACC was intercepted by unknown individuals in several vehicles, and remains missing with no ransom demands made.
The police are currently investigating her disappearance as a missing persons case, and have so far recorded the statements of 27 individuals.
