GEORGE TOWN – The South Australian Parliament has passed five motions where it called for the Royal Malaysian Police to seek a conclusion to the cold case of Australian grandmother Annapuranee “Anna” Jenkins whose skeletal remains were found here last year after her disappearance in 2017.
The sitting has dragged Malaysia into the spotlight, where SA-Best member of the South Australian Legislative Council Frank Pangallo told the lower House that the conduct of the Malaysian police was simply inadequate in the case management.
He chided the Penang authorities for taking too long to address the grievances of the Jenkins family, including Anna’s children Greg and Jennifer, who have spent up to A$200,000 (RM609,000) to find out what happened to their mother.
The family reportedly made 21 trips between 2017 and last year before her remains were found at a construction site near the Batu Gantong crematorium.
Pangallo urged the Australian police and Interpol to assist their Malaysian counterparts in trying to swiftly bring justice to the case.
He added that he has written to Australia Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne to initiate discussions “as a matter of urgency” with the Malaysian government to push for a formal investigation.
However, the assembly had stopped short of Pangallo’s proposal for the state Parliament to seek the intervention of the Yang di-Pertuan Agong.
Pangallo also asked the Australian government to request for Malaysia to repatriate Anna’s remains at cost, allowing her family an opportunity to conduct a funeral and to determine the cause of death because they have lost faith in the Malaysian police’s ability to solve the case.
“Her grieving family has been forced to go beyond what any family should have to endure because nobody seems to care – along with the incompetent and woeful investigation, if you could call it that, by police in George Town.
“Her family deserves justice – and they deserve closure.”
Anna, then aged 65, was in Penang for a short holiday but disappeared on December 13, 2017, in Scotland Road here after exiting a ride-sharing vehicle.
The driver of the vehicle was questioned and later released by police. She asked to get off, according to the elderly driver.
Last year, her skeletal remains were found 2km from where she was last seen. Some of her remains were found inside a cleared construction site.
In 2017, the site was a forestry area nestled against the Penang Hill range.
Anna was visiting her mother at the Little Sisters of the Poor Home for the Infirm but had got off midway in Scotland Road. Her mother C. Mary Anne died at the age of 101 in 2018.
Police here are now waiting for the coroner’s court to commence a formal inquest into the disappearance of Anna, classifying the case as sudden death.
Lawyer S. Raveentharan, who is assisting the family, said he has written to police about the inquest and to step up the pace of the investigation. – The Vibes, November 19, 2021
