Australian foreign minister to keep close watch on Anna Jenkins inquest

PETALING JAYA: Australian foreign minister Penny Wong has promised to keep a close watch on Malaysian authorities over investigations into the 2017 disappearance of Adelaide grandmother Anna Jenkins, whose skeletal remains were found three years later.

Wong did not bring up the case with the authorities during her official visit to Malaysia recently, but vowed to follow the developments of the case closely.

“We asked a number of questions (when) in the opposition and I understand there is a coronial inquiry.

“We will certainly keep monitoring it,” she said, according to Australian news portal The Advertiser.

However, Wong refused to comment on whether she thought the police had erred in their investigations but said it was understandable that the Jenkins family would want to seek out the truth.

Wong described the case as “very distressing”, adding that she would be watching the inquest closely when it resumes on July 18.

Anna’s son, Greg, said he would have preferred for Wong to raise the case with the authorities in an official capacity, adding that having a prominent figure mention his mother’s case would have had an impact.

On June 10, the Jenkins family had decided to ask an Australian state to hold a separate inquest there following purported gaps in the ongoing inquest into her death here in Malaysia.

According to Greg, the separate inquest was necessary as the family needed a cause of death to be determined before being allowed to give Anna a proper send-off and burial.

Anna, 65, disappeared in Penang after an Uber ride in 2017, with her remains discovered at a construction site in Batu Gantong on the island three years later.

The inquest into Anna’s death, which last sat on March 31, has seen seven witnesses, with 10 more expected to testify. Proceedings were supposed to take place from June 7 to 10 but were further postponed to July 18-22. — Free Malaysia Today