SINGAPORE, Jan 8 — She watched in horror as her fiance was allegedly pinned down on a couch and beaten up by about 15 men dressed in black.
She herself was slapped twice on the face by a man who claimed to be a VIP in Malaysia.
Nurul, 20, and her fiance Mark, 31, were so outraged by the incident that they contacted The New Paper to recount the incident.
They didn't want their full names published for fear of reprisals.
Mark, who is unemployed, said he had checked into Awana Genting Highlands Golf and Country Resort with Nurul and two other friends on Christmas Day.
They visited the Safari nightclub in Genting Highlands at around 11pm.
At about 3am, three women entered the club, escorted by men dressed in black.
Nurul, who is studying to be a childcare teacher, said: “An hour later, when they were about to leave, one of the women, who is in her 30s, elbowed me on the way out.
“Not only did she not apologise,” claimed Nurul, “but the men with her suddenly surrounded us and pushed me away. She even said, 'Serves you right, b...h'.”
Nurul and Mark approached the club manager, who had apparently seen what happened, to ask why he did not step in. The couple were told that the woman is the wife of a Malaysian VIP.
Eventually, the club manager alerted the police.
Mark and his fiancee claimed they related the incident the police, who noted their particulars, including their room number, on a piece of paper.
But the couple did not file an official police report. Mark claimed they decided to let the matter rest as they were told by the police that the people involved were Malaysian VIPs.
The same afternoon, the four Singaporeans chanced upon the same VIP group at a theme park. They tried to keep a distance, but Nurul claimed that a woman from the group who was at the club made a hand gesture daring her to come forward.
She claimed they ignored the group.
At 5am on Dec 27, the day they were to check out, the couple were woken up by a knock on their hotel room door.
A policeman and a hotel security guard, both in uniform, told them that the VIP wanted to see them at the hotel's tower lobby, which is not the main lobby.
They also noticed that the policeman was holding the same piece of paper which had their particulars when they spoke to the police in the club.
They claimed they decided to go to the lobby because they didn't think anything bad would happen since the police was around.
According to Mark, when they got to the lobby, they saw the VIP, wearing a batik shirt and jeans, lounging on a couch.
With him were at least 15 men dressed in black, he alleged. The clear demarcation led him to conclude that the men were the VIP's bodyguards.
He claimed that he recognised a few of the bodyguards in black from the club incident.
“The two men (who escorted us down) were asked to go away by the bodyguards. The bodyguards then cordoned off the corridor to the lobby and the lift area,” claimed Mark. “The tower lobby was isolated. There were no other witnesses.”
The couple claimed that Nurul was slapped twice — once on each cheek — by the VIP.
She was then allegedly held from the back by a bodyguard. She watched helplessly as the VIP then allegedly slapped and punched Mark.
After the VIP was done, the bodyguards took over and beat him for about 30 minutes, Mark claimed.
Even as the alleged beating continued, the VIP demanded that the couple apologise for what they had done to his wife.
Nurul, who was in tears by then, said she screamed: “Where are our human rights?”
Mark claimed: “The VIP replied in English, 'You have no human rights until you apologise for what you did to my wife.”
The VIP accused Nurul of hitting his wife and hitting his wife's table at the Safari nightclub, Mark claimed.
Mark said: “None of this happened. They were always surrounded by bodyguards, so how could we have got close enough to hit them?”
Mark's fiancee eventually apologised to the VIP so that they would stop beating him up. After that, Mark claimed, the VIP offered to take them to the hospital and promised he would not hurt them anymore.
They were sceptical about his offer. “(But) if we had said no, we (feared we) could have faced worse consequences,” said Nurul.
The VIP and a bodyguard then went up to Mark's hotel room with him as they were worried that his fiancee, who had left the lobby five minutes earlier, would call the police.
Nurul was crying in one of their friends' room.
When The New Paper spoke to Ryan, 21, one of the couple's friends who were with them, he claimed he did not see what happened in the club.
But he said he was woken up by a phone call from Mark at about 5am on Dec 27, telling them that someone was at their door asking them to go for a talk with the VIP.
As he was in the room next to the couple's, he looked through the peephole and saw two men standing outside Mark's room.
In less than 30 minutes, said Ryan, Nurul came knocking at his door.
He told The New Paper that Nurul seemed all right initially, but she broke down as she told him what had happened.
About five minutes later, Mark, the VIP and a bodyguard were at his door.
Ryan claimed that Mark was bleeding from his right eye, which was swollen, and alleged there were blood stains on his T-shirt.
“I was in shock. I didn't expect this to happen, especially at that time (of the morning),” said Ryan.
Accompanied by Ryan and their other friend, Hannah, the couple were taken to the Klinik Genting hospital in the VIP's black BMW X5 Series.
Before the VIP left the hospital, he allegedly told them not to report the matter to the police or blow up the matter. Mark also claimed that he was made to take off his bloodied clothes, which were taken away by the VIP.
He did not report the matter to the hotel management or the police as he was worried about repercussions.
When contacted, the security manager of Awana Genting Highlands Golf and Country Resort told The New Paper that he had received no report of such an incident.
The four returned to Singapore on Dec 28, and Mark said he saw a doctor the next day.
He showed The New Paper medical documents from both Klinik Genting and Changi General Hospital to prove that he had been injured.
He said he sustained mostly head injuries, including a small hairline fracture on his right cheek and bleeding from his right eye.
The couple said they reported the incident to the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs on Dec 30.
When contacted by The New Paper, the ministry declined to comment on the incident.
Nurul said: “Just because you're a VIP, it doesn't mean you can treat us like that. At least show some evidence that I was the one who provoked the woman on that first night.
“Our family told us not to go up against such VIPs but we can't just pretend that nothing happened. They were so cool and calculated about the whole thing, like they knew they could get away with it.
“It's really unbelievable.” — The New Paper
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