KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 11 — Immigration director-general Datuk Seri Mustafar Ali said today PKR’s election data chief Alvin Teoh was not detained by his officers in Sibu as claimed by the police.

"According to the immigration officer on duty at the departure hall of the Sibu airport, the subject has no connection with Immigration issues but was arrested by the police when the subject wanted to depart for KUL,” he told Malay Mail in Malay through WhatsApp, using the destination code for the national capital.

Sarawak PKR election coordinator Desmond Kho told Malay Mail earlier that Teoh was stopped by Immigration officers from flying out of Sibu earlier this morning.

Kho said he received information that Sibu police later took custody of Teoh before handing him to their Sarikei counterparts, adding that a lawyer has been engaged to find out where Teoh was being held.

Kho also said Teoh’s arrest could be linked to police reports regarding an alleged hacking of the party’s tablets that were used for electronic voting at PKR Julau.

Teoh is the IT director of the central election committee and was in Julau to help conduct the PKR polls there. 

The PKR party elections committee chief Datuk Rashid Din the Julau party results are on hold as seven tablets out of 76 used for voting yesterday had been seized by police.

The first political party in the country to use electronic voting through tablets, PKR’s ongoing leadership elections has been wracked with violence and allegations of vote tampering.

The latest incident involved vote buying at another Sarawak division in Lanang, Malaysiakini reported this afternoon.