BELURAN: A suspected rapist gave police officers escorting him the slip while stopping for dinner at a restaurant in Pekan Nangoh here yesterday.
The cops initially took the suspect, identified as Nasrudi@Sudi Ambo, 29, who has no travel document and was working as a plantation worker, out of the Beluran police lock-up at 1.37pm to retrieve some evidence to facilitate investigation into a rape case.
Handcuffed and escorted by three policemen, they travelled in a police car and went to pick up a jacket at the suspect's home in Kampung Perancangan, Nangoh at 3.30pm.
They then proceeded to an empty house at Kampng Tebidong Bidong to retrieve a pair of pants and a singlet.
Later, the suspect led the policemen to a nearby river where he claimed to have thrown away a phone belonging to a rape victim.
Unable to find the mobile phone, they left the area and made a stop at the restaurant at 7.15pm to buy food after the suspect claimed that he needed to break fast.
As he was eating inside the police vehicle, the cops went inside the restaurant again to buy him water but found him missing after returning to the car three minutes later.
The suspect was said to be still in handcuffed and was last seen running towards an oil palm plantation nearby.