KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 8 — The Immigration Department has denied wrongdoing in issuing duplicate passports to two children of model and former actress Zahnita Dorothy Hussein Wilson, which allowed her estranged husband to take them out of the country last year.
Datuk Sakib Kusmi, the department’s deputy director, said they merely issued the passports after the husband, who has since take the children away to Thailand, lodged a police report saying their old passports were missing.
“Actually this is not the fault of the Immigration. This is a family issue that has involved us,” Sakib told Malay daily Utusan Malaysia yesterday.
Sakib said the department received the police report from Bukit Jelutong lodged by the husband on November 17, before sending a letter to Zahnita on December 31 to explain its decision, with the same letter copied to the police and the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission.
In a press conference with the Malaysian Muslim Consumers Association (PPIM) yesterday, Zahnita, 30, accused the Immigration Department of wrongly issuing duplicate passports for her children, Zahrafeena Abd Zackery, 9, and Zasharayna Abd Zackery, 3, who were then taken by the husband to Phuket, Thailand under the pretext of a holiday.
The model had complained that the Immigration issued new passports for her children even though she had the original identification documents, including their birth certificates, with her instead of with her husband.
In another report in paper Kosmo!, Zahnita confirmed she still has the children’s old passports with her.
Zahnita said she was in the midst of divorcing her husband, Abd Zackery Ghouse Abd Gafoor, 37, and is claiming child custody.
She claimed depression after her children had “gone missing” from her care since November 15, and she only found out they were in Thailand through a phone conversation with the eldest child on December 2.
Zahnita then lodged a report with PPIM on December 29, and only lodged a police report on the matter on January 4.