We are in search of a Singaporean Chinese man named Kouk Leong Jin who has went to Greece for a conference. He has not been contactable since Tuesday night, including no return to his hotel, no phone call and even missing the conference itself.
Details:
26 Sep Monday - Leong Jin arrived in Athens, Greece and did inform wife via email that he has reached. He checks into Golden Age Hotel.
…
27Sep Tuesday - Leong Jin called his friend, who was supposed to meet him at the conference on Wednesday. I think the friend missed his call. It was checked from telco that he surfed the net on his phone at around 10+pm (Athen’s time) on Tuesday night.
28 Sep Wednesday - Wife managed to contact hotel and hotel informed that his last access is on Tuesday morning. Leong Jin was not seen by his friend who was waiting to meet him at the conference.
29 Sep Thursday - Leong Jin’s brother contacted MFA in the evening.
30 Sep Friday - Wife contacted Starhub and made police report as suggested by MFA. Friend in Athens managed to enter Leong Jin’s hotel room with hotel manager. He was not in the room. His mobile charger is in the room. MFA, local embassy and police in Athens has been activated to track him.
Additional things that are done/ checked:
Singapore embassy and MFA has already been informed and are working at their best there
Credit card activity and hospital has been checked.
Telco in Athens (Cosmote) is contacted to ask for last known location of his phone.
Mentor has been informed.
Duke NUS has been informed.
Hotels have been questioned and checked.
Phone battery has been depleted, so it can’t be located.
Nearby Ferry Terminals have been contacted
Nearby Hostels have been contacted
Flight details (Thai Airways):
25 Sep 2011
SIN - BKK (TG410) : 2050 to 2210
BKK - ATH (TG946) : 0035 to 0725 (+1 day)
1 Oct 2011
ATH - BKK (TG947) : 1615 to 0605
BKK - SIN (TG403) : 0800 to 1115 (+1 day)
Name of Conference:
9th International Scientific Meeting of Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists - Joint Meeting with the Hellenic Obstetric & Gynaecological Society
Venue of Conference: Megaron Athens International Conference Centre
Contact us if you have any information.
Teck Siong Ang and/or Wei Min Soon
Singaporean missing in Athens: Greek police say kidnapping unlikely
Search continues with newspapers, websites, TV spreading the news
Published on Oct 6, 2011
By Tham Yuen-C & Poon Chian Hui
He has been kidnapped. He was hurt during street riots. He is marooned on a Greek island.
Theories abound about what has happened to Singaporean medical student Kouk Leong Jin, 28, who has been missing in Athens for more than one week now.
Wednesday was the eighth day since anyone last heard from the Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School student, who arrived in Athens on Sept 26 to attend a medical conference.
One theory has it that he could have been kidnapped. But contacted on Wednesday, Greek police rubbished this. An officer at the Greek police’s Office of Disappearances in Athens told The Straits Times that not a single tourist had been kidnapped there this year.
‘We are a safe country for tourists. It is not common for tourists to be kidnapped here,’ he said.
In any case, some of Mr Kouk’s friends noted that it would not be easy for anyone to abduct him, given that he is 1.7m tall and a karate exponent.
On Facebook, a user said he was ‘sure that Kouk would be okay, being a senior in karate and a doctor’. Mr Kouk himself was also quoted in a Straits Times report on astronomy in 2006 that he practises the martial art.
Mr Kuok became uncontactable after Sept 27. The last call he made from his mobile phone was at about 10.40pm that day, to a friend who missed the call.
Before he went missing, he had sent an e-mail to his wife, teacher Seow Shu Ping, 28, saying he might explore some of the nearby islands before the conference started on Sept 28.
Theories have floated that he was stuck on one of the islands, such as Hydra, Poros and Aegina.
But friends said they know him to be a responsible person, and it was unlikely he would have run the risk of missing the conference to take a day trip to the islands.
Other media have reported that Mr Kouk had rented a car in Athens as there were transport strikes the week he was there.
But some of his friends doubted this, pointing out that he was generally a thrifty person. It is also understood that he was carrying only a few hundred euros in cash.
Checks with his bank also revealed that he had not been using his credit card.
The remote island theory has also been put to rest by Greek telco, Cosmote, which has finally released the last known location of Mr Kouk’s mobile phone. It did not put him in a remote area, sources said.
Netizens have also wondered if he could have been hurt in riots in Athens, but Greek police have said they have not received reports of any Chinese man being hurt.
The Singapore Consulate in Athens has also checked hospitals and ambulances in the city, and found nothing.
Yesterday, Greek police said they had followed up on a lead from a woman who reported that she saw a man resembling Mr Kouk in an Athens street on Monday, but police said they did not manage to locate him.
Another officer at the Office of Disappearances said: ‘Yes, someone said she saw him, but we did not find him.’
The woman had told police that she saw a man fitting Mr Kouk’s description. He was wearing a blue top and was also about 1.7m tall. She said she realised it could be him later, after seeing posters with his pictures.
Newspapers, Internet sites and TV stations in Greece have been spreading the news about the missing man, with some news stations televising an appeal by his wife on the hour.
Ms Seow - his wife of two weeks - was filmed appealing for help a few days ago, and the clip was blitzed on TV channels yesterday. In it, she said tearily that she was very worried about him.
Meanwhile, Greek police have notified their counterparts in surrounding countries to look out for Mr Kouk.
Singapore’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday that the Singapore police have also sought help through global police organisation Interpol to help locate him.
Before he went to Duke-NUS, Mr Kouk, who had studied in Bukit Panjang Government High School, had majored in life sciences at the National University of Singapore and was also president of the university’s Astronomical Society.
He was a navy officer during his national service and was the president of the Duke-NUS Student Council last year.
yuenc@sph.com.sg
chpoon@sph.com.sg