‘I cut myself’ victim apologises
KOTA KINABALU, Jan 23: A week after photos of the slashed wrist of a 20-year-old victim in a robbery attempt that allegedly happened at Suria Sabah went viral, the woman finally confessed that it was a made-up story that went wrong.
In a press conference held at the shopping mall here yesterday, the alleged victim who did not wish to be identified clarified that she had cut herself and that there had been no robbery attempt at the said shopping mall on the day the photos went viral.
She also claimed that the photos were uploaded to Facebook without her knowledge, much less her consent.
“I’ve made a huge mistake and I sincerely apologise to Suria Sabah, to the public, to the police, to my parents and everyone involved.
“Although those were actual photos of my injured wrist, I did not sustain the injury at Suria Sabah and there was no injury. I cut myself,” she told reporters at the press conference.
Democratic Action Party (DAP) deputy chief secretary Junz Wong, who had been vocal about the issue since it went viral on January 6, also apologised for the way the incident had unfolded, and stressed that creating awareness on the increasing crime rate in the city was his focus when bringing the matter up, and not any personal attack against the shopping mall.
“First of all, we would like to apologise to Suria, although we have done so immediately after finding out about the status of the alleged incident. It was never my intention to be against Suria or anybody. It was just to create awareness that such an incident could happen in Kota Kinabalu.
“We have gone through the CCTV footage and conclude that the incident did not happen. We owe Suria and the public an apology,” said Junz.
Junz claimed that he had received an unverified report from one of the DAP youth members who also happened to be a friend of the alleged victim, regarding the alleged incident, with photos of the slashed wound of the alleged victim’s wrist, on the same day the incident was said to have happened.
He said despite his best efforts to clarify the matter, he and his team failed to get hold of the alleged victim to verify the story.
In their defence, Junz claimed that they had tried to reach the alleged victim for clarification on the same day they received the report, but failed. However, photos of the slashed wrist with photo caption stating that the wound was sustained in an attempted robbery at the Suria Sabah Shopping Mall at 7.10pm on January 6, had gone viral barely hours after it was uploaded.
He stated that he and his team managed to get hold of the alleged victim and her parents the next day, who then told them that the incident was a made-up story.
“Back then, everyone believed the story to be true, even myself, because we saw her personally and saw her bandaged injury. So we thought that it was the responsibility of everyone to cooperate with the police, and lodge a report so that everything could be investigated and verified, which the alleged victim finally agreed to and lodged a police report at 6pm on the day that we saw her and her parents.”
“On our part, at that time we had our reasons to believe that, since it had been reported, the police would investigate and find out the truth,” said Junz.
source: The Borneo Post
