SUNGAI PETANI, July 1 ― Every time Chee Gaik Yap’s name is mentioned, tears well up in Chee Ah Sau’s eyes.
The small-framed man has been engaged in a seven-year battle for justice for his daughter Gaik Yap, a former marketing executive who was raped and killed.
Sitting in a rattan chair in the family’s low-cost flat in Taman Ria Jaya here, Ah Sau said Gaik Yap was their answer out of poverty.
“I have six children and she was the only one who went to university. Gaik Yap had just graduated a year earlier and was doing very well at work. Her employer was planning to send her overseas for training,” said the 55-year-old.
The family, including his eight-year-old grand-daughter, live in a two-bedroom flat nestled among six dilapidated blocks of residential units. They have lived there for more than 10 years but there were no traces of Gaik Yap’s photographs on the walls or cabinets in the house.
An odd-job worker, Ah Sau said his daughter was an athlete since her schooldays and enjoyed playing basketball. She occasionally jogged at the Cinta Sayang Club area but on January 14, 2006, this family’s life changed forever when she failed to return home.
Her elder sister Evon, 35, said Gaik Yap, who was then 25, had accompanied their younger sister Gaik Choon, who wanted to jog at Cinta Sayang.
“Gaik Yap’s stamina was better, so she ran ahead of Gaik Choon. But after waiting for some time, Gaik Yap did not return. Gaik Choon went looking for her but could not find her. She panicked when she only found a shoe. Fearing the worst, she ran home to inform us,” Evon said.
Ah Sau searched the Cinta Sayang grounds but could not find her and was informed by police later that the body of a half-naked woman with a single stab wound to her neck had been found near some bushes outside the club.
From that moment, their lives changed forever, especially for Ah Sau, who became a weekly visitor to the Sungai Petani police station for three years during which he would ask for any development on his daughter’s case.
“Everyone here knew what happened to Gaik Yap. People would ask me for updates and advised me not to give up. The policemen at the station would get worried when they see me because there were no new developments,” he said.
According to news reports, no arrests had been made for three years until 2009 when three men, including car salesman Shahril Jaafar, 32, were investigated but later released.
Shahril was re-arrested last year after returning from Australia and charged with Gaik Yap’s murder but was acquitted last week.
The verdict was too much for Ah Sau, who tried to leap off a building at the courthouse but was stopped by pressmen.
“I have calmed down now but it breaks my heart that after seven years of waiting and fighting for her justice, we’re back to where we started,” he said.
Evon said following her sister’s death, they put away all her belongings “so as not to be reminded of the pain”.
“She was the only one among us who would never get angry, which made us bully her more. She was good in her studies and loved to bake for the family,” she said.
For Ah Sau, the fight for justice continues — he wants the Attorney-General’s Chambers to file a notice of appeal against the High Court decision.
Datuk Keramat assemblyman Jagdeep Singh said DAP national chairman Karpal Singh would hold a watching brief for the family at the Court of Appeal after Ah Sau expressed disappointment over the High Court verdict.
Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng would submit a supporting letter to Attorney-General Tan Sri Gani Patail to re-open the case on humanitarian grounds.
Asked how long he would wait for justice to be served, Ah Sau said: “I will fight till the day I die. I have waited seven years. I can wait for another seven years or more.”
