Father took two days to locate his arrested children

By Asrul Hadi Abdullah Sani

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 3 — Kadeni Jamali took two days trying to locate his children after he received a message from one of his sons telling him that they had been arrested before their phones were confiscated by the police.

“I was at home when I received the message that he was in a police station but I did not know which station it was. It took me two days to find them,” he said.

His two sons and an adopted son were on their way from Tapah, Perak to visit their uncle in Kajang. In the train, the children met with their friends who were part of PAS’s Unit Amal (security team). The children decided to join their friends since it was already late. On their way to their destination, they were stopped by the police and arrested at 3.40am on Saturday. The children were brought to Brickfields police station.

The three children were among about 600 people arrested for taking part in the march against the ISA on Saturday.

Kadeni only found out the whereabouts of his children when he received a call from a lawyer at 3am on Sunday.

“The lawyer called me and told me that two of my sons are in Bukit Jalil and one, who is underaged, is in Petaling Jaya,” he told reporters at the Kuala Lumpur High Court.

The father lost his composure and tried to hold back his tears when a reporter asked the ages of his children.

The children are Faizuddin Hazman, 16, Kamarul Nadir, 18, and Abu Ubaidah, 20.

The 51-year-old father was disappointed that the police did not bother to inform him that his children had been arrested.

“I really regret that the police never tried to contact me, it took me two days to find them. The police should have told me.”

Kadeni told reporters that the police did not give any reasons for the arrests and told him that his children are still under investigation.

He stressed that his sons are innocent and are not part of PAS's Unit Amal.

Lawyer Fadiah Nadwa told reporters that the lawyers would be filing a revision on the remand order for Faizuddin.

“The remand order is not valid because he is still a child and no Welfare Department officers have been notified, and he was handcuffed and put into a lockup with adults. The most important thing was that he was remanded without lawyers,” she said.

The father also confirmed that he would be lodging a police report after his son’s cases today.