THE Kuala Lumpur High Court found the police and government indirectly responsible for the disappearance of Amri Che Mat and awarded RM3 million in damages to his wife Noorhayati Mohd Ariffin.
Judge Su Tiang Joo, who took almost two hours to read the judgment today, also ordered the police to reopen their investigation into Amri's disappearance starting today and to report their progress to the Attorney General every two months.
The ruling came after Amri’s wife, Norhayati Mohd Ariffin, filed a lawsuit in 2019 seeking information on her husband’s fate and compensation, relying on findings from a special task force report.
In April 2019, the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam) concluded that Amri’s disappearance was an enforced one, carried out by government agents from the police’s Special Branch.
“I find that there was a lack of effort to ensure that Amri’s family was kept informed (and) the classification of Amri’s disappearance was wrong as it should have been classified as an abduction and not a missing person,” he said, after ruling that Noorhayati had successfully proven her case on the balance of probabilities.
He added that the authorities had violated Noorhayati’s right to life, as protected under Article 5(1) of the Federal Constitution, when the defendants failed to conduct a proper investigation into Amri’s disappearance.
The judge also awarded RM250,000 in costs to the plaintiff.
Noorhayati filed a suit against the government, the police and four others on November 18, 2019, seeking aggravated and exemplary damages for the losses she suffered as a result of Amri’s disappearance in 2016.
She initially filed a suit against 21 defendants.
Amri, the founder of the NGO Perlis Hope, left his home at about 11.30pm on Nov 24, 2016. His car was found at a construction site at the Bukit Cabang Sports School in Perlis early the next morning.
Before reading the judgment today, the court confirmed with Noorhayati's lawyer, Surendra Ananth, that it had dropped the suits against 15 individuals, including Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, who was Home Minister between May 16, 2013 to May 9, 2018. – November 5, 2025
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