I renamed the issue from Sosilawati murder to Banting Murders because (i) there’s potentially more than the 4 recent victims, and (ii) to reduce any possible racial connotations.
Today’s NST and Star gave much space on this murders. Coverage include the missing Chennai millionaire, other possible murder cases and so on. The articles are too many, so for some of them, I’ll just provide the links for your reference.
Police forensics department personnel have been working round-the-clock and are still combing the 1.6ha farm where some of Sosilawati’s personal belongings were found. Sources said investigators believed that the murder of Sosilawati’s three companions were not planned.
“We believe the man had expected Sosilawati to show up alone,’’ said one source. The source said Sosilawati had gone to meet the lawyer to get a refund of several million ringgit she had paid him to buy a plot of land in Penang. Another source said the other suspects were paid RM2,500 to burn each body and dispose of the ashes at the nearby river.
More from the NST:
Datuk Sosilawati Lawiya’s murder was premeditated while her three companions were simply at the wrong place at the wrong time.This is the theory police are working on after it was ascertained that the cosmetics millionaire met a lawyer in Banting to seek a refund of the deposit she had given him to buy a parcel of land in Penang.The three other victims were Sosilawati’s lawyer, Ahmad Kamil Abdul Karim, 32, CIMB Bank officer Noorhisham Mohammad, 38, and driver Kamarudin Shansudin, 44.
It was learnt that Sosilawati, 47, the founder of the Nouvelles Visages beauty line, had engaged the lawyer’s services to submit a tender for a piece of land in Bukit Jambul, Penang.
“However, the tender was unsuccessful and Sosilawati wanted her money back,
believed to amount to several million ringgit,” a source said.It was believed that the lawyer, said to be a 41-year-old Datuk, then arranged to meet Sosilawati at his office in Banting on Aug 30, purportedly to return the money.
Sosilawati turned up with her business associates which surprised the lawyer as he thought she would come alone.
He then invited the group to a meeting at his poultry farm as his law firm had closed for the day.
It was learnt that the four victims were murdered on the same day. They had their throats slit.
It was also learnt that police recovered a knife, believed to have been used in the killings, last Sunday night after searching several streams near the poultry farm in Sungai Gadung, near Tanjung Sepat here. This followed
questioning of the suspects.The remains of the four were said to have been burnt and the ashes scattered in several streams near the farm, owned by the lawyer.
Missing Indian millionaire Muthuraja:
Life for M. Usharani has been a living hell since her husband A. Muthuraja, a lawyer from India, disappeared in Banting after he came here for a visit in January.
She said her financier husband had arrived in Malaysia on Jan 18 after being invited by two lawyer brothers in Banting.
“They told him it was compulsory to come and that he could return to India in a day,” said Usharani, adding that her last contact with Muthuraja was on that day.
“My husband told me that the lawyers had picked him up and he was with them at their family home when I spoke to him,” Usharani said in a telephone interview from Chennai, India.
Usharani, 24, said that when she telephoned one of the brothers on Jan 19 after being unable to contact her husband, she was told they did not know if Muthuraja had even come to Malaysia.
She added that the lawyer brothers, who have been detained over the gruesome murder of businesswoman Datuk Sosilawati Lawiya and three others, had been friends with Muthuraja for 10 years.
Usharani, who has a three-year-old daughter, flew to Kuala Lumpur on Sept 7 and lodged a report on her husband’s disappearance at the Banting police station before returning to Chennai on Sept 9.
She said she had called the lawyer brothers and their family members several times when she failed to contact Muthuraja, but they would not entertain her.
“Their wives and family members were very rude.
“I found this strange because as family friends I thought they would be concerned.”
Usharani said that when she persisted in calling and demanding to know where Muthuraja was, the brothers and family members told her he had been caught smuggling ketamine and was in police custody.
“I made countless telephone calls and faxed a note to Interpol and the Indian High Commission in Malaysia.”
Usharani said the brothers’ family told her they could not get involved in her husband’s case “because they were from a reputable family.”
Usharani said Muthuraja’s brother Kasiviswanathan came to Banting four months ago to look for him but the brothers immediately sent him back to Chennai with Muthuraja’s luggage.
“They told him that since my husband was involved in a serious drug case, we should lie low,” she added.
“I don’t want to believe my husband was harmed by his friends.
“Ten years of friendship must amount to something,” she said.
– from The Star
While police were looking for Datuk Sosilawati Lawiya and three others last week, a woman from India came quietly into the country and lodged a second missing person’s report on her husband.The woman, S. Usharani, 24, from Chennai, lodged the report at the Banting police station on Sept 8.Her husband, millionaire Allal Kanthan Muthu Raja, 34, had been missing since January and was last known to be in the company of the two lawyers, currently being investigated for the murders of Sosilawati and her aides.
Speaking to the New Straits Times from Chennai yesterday, Usharani alleged that her husband was lured to Malaysia by the lawyers purportedly for an urgent business deal.“They called him in Chennai on Jan 16 and he took a flight to Kuala Lumpur the next day.”
Usharani said her husband called her after arriving at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport on Jan 18 to inform her that he had arrived safely and was on his way to Banting with both lawyers.
“We know both the lawyer brothers. Their families had visited us in Chennai many times and we, too, had visited them in Banting,” said the woman.Allal has various business ventures including jewellery shops, plantations, hotels and restaurants.
“My husband had been partners with the brothers for almost 10 years. So when they called on Jan 16 and asked him to bring along cash, he did not hesitate,” she said, adding that Allal had almost 18kg of jewellery and at least RM10,000 on him.
On Jan 19, however, Usharani tried calling her husband and he could not be reached. That was when her troubles started.
“I contacted the lawyers and they told me my husband was caught by police for attempting to smuggle drugs into the country,” she said.
She then contacted the Indian High Commission but they, too, could not get any information on him.
Two weeks later, Usharani started receiving telephone calls from two men who claimed they were police officers from Bukit Aman who could secure her husband’s release if she paid them RM1 million.
“They insisted I come personally with the money so that they would release my husband to me.
“Afraid, I contacted the lawyers and they advised me to pay the ‘police officers’ and to stop calling them.
“That was when I became suspicious and I came down to Malaysia. I went to Banting and lodged a missing person’s report. However, I did not meet the lawyers.”
In May, Allal’s younger brother, Kasiviswanathan, 31, came down and met the lawyers.
“They told him that my husband was still under arrest. They also advised him to return quickly to India, saying that the police would arrest him as well. They even returned my husband’s luggage to him,” she said.
Usharani kept silent for several months, hoping that her husband would return soon.
However, her fears of not seeing him again increased when she got news from a relative here that the lawyers were implicated in the quadruple murders.
“I returned to Malaysia on Sept 8 and lodged a second report at the Banting police station, hoping this time, police would take my complaint seriously. I’m just keeping my fingers crossed.”
Usharani, who married Allal in 2006, has a 3-year-old daughter.
On Sunday, police had revealed that the two lawyers were also linked to four other businessmen reported missing over the past year.
Allal was one of them while the three others were said to be local Indians.
For years, the small community in Banting had known the brothers as they were prominent figures.They were always said to be involved in land transfers and other land deals.
Old-time residents said the brothers suddenly gained wealth.
They opened up a law firm in Banting, a medical clinic run by their youngest sister, a poultry farm and other businesses in the town,
The Datuk was said to have strong ties to influential businessmen locally and internationally.
Both brothers, however, were suspended by the Bar Council in March 2007 for a year over allegations of cheating their clients.
Both are married and have two children each.
Police investigations revealed that the lawyers often offered pro bono services to build up a clean and trustworthy reputation in the town.“The Datuk had held several press conferences in the past to highlight cases of sexual harassment and maid abuse,” a source said.
Federal CID director commissioner Datuk Seri Bakri Zinin said on Sunday that four missing persons cases would be re-investigated based on police reports lodged by their families who had linked the lawyer duo.
Sources said that among those missing and believed to have been “disposed of” were an Indian national, a local woman and two men. It is learnt that the suspects had “spilled the beans” on at least four other murders although this could not be confirmed.
It is learnt the police’s anti-money laundering division would be applying to the Attorney-General’s Chambers for an order to freeze the assets, including bank accounts, of the two lawyers.
The main suspect was said to own at least nine luxury cars worth millions of ringgit, including seven Mercedes Benzes. The 41-year-old lawyer Datuk, said to be the mastermind behind the murder of Sosilawati and three others, was brought to the crime scene at Ladang Gadong here at 3am yesterday to help in investigations.
Penang police are reopening unsolved murder cases in the state over the past few years, particularly those involving lawyers.State police chief Deputy Comm Datuk Wira Ayub Yaakob said a special committee would relook those cases to see if there were any new developments.He was commenting on unsolved cases of lawyers who were murdered in the state over the past few years.
On whether these cases could be linked to the murder of cosmetics millionaire Datuk Sosilawati Lawiya, DCP Ayub said they were studying all possibilities.
On July 27 last year, four men cornered lawyer R. Thinakaran Raman, 37, outside a Hindu temple in Supreme Garden, Prai, before forcing him to drink a substance, believed to be detergent. He died a day later of acute renal failure.
Two weeks before his death, he was dragged out of a burning car on the Penang Bridge by passers-by and while resting against the concrete railings of the bridge, accidentally fell into the sea but survived after fishermen rescued him.
On Nov 6, 2007, senior civil lawyer Datuk S.P. Annamalai, 59, died of excessive loss of blood after he was stabbed with a long knife when he was walking to his car in Green Hall here.
His clerk S. Nalaaini, 22, said that the assailant fled on a motorcycle.
On March 2, 2000, lawyer Chew Sien Chee, 39, was shot twice in the neck by a hitman in Tingkat Betik 2, Taman Seri Jaya, Bukit Mertajam.
He had just entered his Mercedes Benz and was about to leave the house for work when the man approached him and fired three times at close range, hitting Chew twice.
He died without regaining consciousness.
On Oct 19, 1997, criminal lawyer S. Pathmanathan, 29, was found dead with nine stab wounds in the neck and back at his China Street office. He was believed to have been murdered the previous evening or night.
He was found with his hands tied behind his back with a metal chain and a padlock while his mouth was mask taped.
Triptipal Singh, 60, was shot in the back outside his house in Jalan Yeap Chor Ee on Oct 15, 1992. He died of heart complications on Nov 1.
Two men had walked up to him from behind and fired five shots at point-blank range. Three of the shots hit him.
The two lawyer brothers arrested in relation to the murder of cosmetics millionaire Datuk Sosilawati Lawiya and three others were disbarred by the Bar Council’s disciplinary board on Nov 5 last year.A Bar Council source said the duo however got a stay pending an appeal against the board’s decision. “Their appeal in court has been scheduled for Oct 18,” said the source.According to the source, the complaint against the brothers was that they had misrepresented themselves as advocates and solicitors in furnishing a false power of attorney in respect of the sale and purchase of a house in Banting.
Earlier, the council had suspended the two brothers from March 9, 2007 to March 30, 2008, over another property transaction.
It was also revealed yesterday that the Datuk had intentions of joining the MIC.
Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Senator Datuk T. Murugiah said the lawyer told him so when they met at a Hari Raya community programme at Kampung Bukit Cheeding in Banting.
“He appeared to be a generous individual and I was invited to distribute hampers which he sponsored for the orang asli community there,” said Murugiah, who crossed over to the MIC from the PPP in July.
More from NST:
Checks also revealed that the Datuk and his brother were struck off the roll of legal practitioners in November last year. But they were granted a stay pending an appeal.A Bar Council official said the two were struck off for various misdeeds, including alleged shady land dealings and breach of trust. The two were also suspended for a year from March 2007.
Checks also revealed that the younger brother was charged with three counts of criminal breach of trust involving the transfer of a parcel of land worth RM200,000 last year.
He was granted bail of RM50,000 pending the mention of his case on Sept 20.
Family members, friends, Banting residents, public etc. are shocked over the gruesome deaths:
http://www.nst.com.my/nst/articles/ClosefriendsofSosilawati_can_tacceptsheisdead_/Article
http://www.nst.com.my/nst/articles/Shockovergentlemanturnedmurdersuspect/Article/
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2010/9/14/nation/7031480&sec=nation
The murder location, not a typical farm:
A luxury escapade in the guise of a poultry farm.This is how some residents in the vicinity described the three acres of “poultry farm” which comprised three blocks — an office, a clubhouse and a chalet — plus a betel leaf and livestock farms.This was where Datuk Sosilawati Lawiya and three others were believed to have been murdered before their bodies were burnt.
A resident staying nearby, identified as Kumar, 40, said the farm was surrounded by a high wall and was not accessible to outsiders.
He said the farm, with its buildings, was situated about 1km away from the main entrance.
“No one knows what happens inside. Even if someone screamed for help, nobody could hear them.”
He said the farm originally belonged to a man from Batu Caves, who sold it to the Datuk lawyer about 11/2 years ago.
Kumar said the Datuk, whose main hobby was livestock-breeding, used the farm for his business dealings. It was learnt that the Datuk took most of his clients to the farm.
Kumar, who has lived here all his life, said on Sunday that he noticed scores of policemen and media representatives at the entrance to the farm.
“Initially, I thought it was a film shoot. I was shocked when a friend later told me what was going on.
“There are about 45 families living nearby. We were shocked when we learnt that the missing people could have been murdered so close to us.”
from the Star:
Meanwhile, an acquaintance of the lawyer Datuk said the farm housed a chalet where several workers were hired to care for the animals.
“Several goats, two peacocks, a cow, jungle fowl, squirrels and a fox were kept at the far end of the farm.”
He said the lawyer used the farm to entertain friends who were treated to exotic meats, besides expensive liquor and beers.
We hope that more cases can be solved so that other families who are missing their loved ones can get some peace and move on with their lives. May their souls rest in peace.
As for the murderers, nothing less than the death penalty should be given.