Woman shows face at inquiry

TheSun 15Dec2005 Woman shows face at inquiry by S. Tamarai Chelvi and Maria J. Dass KUALA LUMPUR: The young woman in the nude ear-squat video clip was recalled by the commission of inquiry yesterday and asked to reveal her face to those at the hearing. This was done at the request of lawyer S.N. Nair, representing four Chinese nationals listed as witnesses, who said the woman had to be positively identified. Dressed in a pink baju kurung and black tudung, the woman entered the courtroom at the Federal Courthouse at 5.05pm from the back door with her face covered with a black blazer. She was accompanied by a woman investigating officer, S. Thilagavathy. At 5.10pm, the inquiry reconvened and commission chair man Tun Mohamed Dzaiddin Abdullah reminded the press about the order prohibiting them from publishing her name, photograph and personal particulars. DPP Suhaimi Ibrahim then informed the inquiry that the clearest-possible static image taken from the video clip of the woman was being displayed on the projector. (Her breasts in the image were covered.) The projector, positioned earlier in front of the commission members exclusively for their viewing, was placed facing the commission members, the media, and those in the public gallery for them to compare the image on the screen with her face. Suhaimi asked her "whose picture is being displayed?" and she replied "mine". Dzaiddin asked her to remove her headscarf to allow Nair to look at her. Nair, who was seated behind her, got up and took two steps forward to look. He looked at the image on the projector and nodded. Suhaimi then asked the woman to face the gallery. She did so for about 10 seconds. Her face matched the still image on the screen. Nair then got up and told the commission the woman was "positively identified". The woman was also shown her black-and-white hair band, which she identified as hers. Her hair band could also be seen on the video clip. Earlier, Nair told the commission the woman should be recalled for positive identification. He said nobody saw her face when she appeared on Tuesday, except for the commission members. Nair said the woman's hair band was also not produced or shown to her for identification. Asked by Dzaiddin why he did not raise the matter when she testified, Nair said he had expected the handphone used to record the video clip to show the particular time the recording was made as this will prove the timeframe given by the woman matched the details in the handphone recording. The Chinese nationals represented by Nair were not called to testify. Sixteen of the 21 witnesses appeared before the inquiry during the three days of hearing. The inquiry reconvenes tomorrow to hear the closing submissions.