Mystery deepens in Malaysia as wife of Sarawak’s Taib Mahmud denies taking him from hospital against doctor’s advice
- Raghad Kurdi has refuted allegations that she forcibly removed the state’s longest-serving chief minister from a hospital ICU against his doctor’s orders
- Taib’s children have also sued Raghad over the transfer of shares owned by their father to her name in a public listed conglomerate
Posts of a police report believed to have been filed by Taib’s doctor were widely shared on X (formerly Twitter), Facebook and Reddit, alleging that his wife, Raghad Kurdi Taib, had removed the 87-year-old from the Normah Medical Specialist Centre in Kuching despite being advised against it on Saturday night.
It is believed Taib was in intensive care when a team that included bodyguards and a butler wheeled him out to a waiting luxury multipurpose vehicle and took him away.
Sarawak police on Monday confirmed that they had received a report regarding the alleged incident, and have launched an investigation.
But the wife of the wealthy Taib, whose business interests mushroomed during his decades at the helm of Sarawak’s politics, has denied the claims.
“That’s not true,” Raghad said on Monday in a reel on Instagram after police announced its probe into allegations that Taib was removed from hospital against his doctor’s advice.
The reel included a picture of a near-illegible nursing note dated February 3 – the night when Taib was believed to have been taken out of hospital – which Raghad said “is the proof” to support her claim.
Police said their investigation involves alleged rash or negligent behaviour that endangers human life or personal safety of others, which carries a penalty of up to three months in jail, a maximum 500 ringgit (U$105) fine or both.
Taib was Sarawak’s longest-serving chief minister, leading the state for over 30 years after taking over the post from his uncle in 1981. He was named the state’s governor not long after retiring in 2014.
Taib married a 29-year-old Raghad in 2010, a year after his Polish-born first wife Laila died of cancer at 68.
Taib’s political opponents and rights activists have accused him of pillaging Sarawak’s natural resources to enrich himself and his family, allegedly amassing billions of dollars in wealth and assets while feeding a political elite which scooped up major infrastructure projects and state-sanctioned investments he approved over his tenure.
Taib’s children are currently suing Raghad over the transfer of shares owned by their father to her name in the public-listed Cahaya Mata Sarawak, a wealthy conglomerate founded by the ex-governor with interests ranging from construction to infrastructure development and IT.
His sons, Sulaiman Abdul Rahman and Mahmud Abu Bekir, are challenging the authenticity of Taib’s signature on a document related to the share transfer, and seeking a court order to stop the process.
