4 foreign tourists who posed naked nabbed for ‘causing’ Sabah quake

The four suspects being led out of the court room. PHOTO from The Star Online/Asia News Network

Police have arrested four foreign nationals in Malaysia after they posed naked at the summit of Mount Kinabalu, a report from Bernama, Malaysia’s official news agency said.

Among those arrested were Canadian siblings, a British women and a Dutch, the report quoted Sabah Police Commissioner Datuk Jalaluddin Abdul Rahman as saying.

It said three of the tourists surrendered to police Tuesday  night while the British woman was arrested at the Tawau airport on the same day.

The four foreign nationals were allegedly part of a group of tourists who posed naked on May 30 at the peak of Mount Kinabalu, the highest peak in Southeast Asia.

The indigenous or local people of Malaysia deemed the stripping of the tourist as disrespectful of local culture, citing their actions may have angered the spirit living in the mountain and eventually caused the earthquake that hit the country on June 5.

Police were searching for the rest of the tourists, who are believed to be still in Sabah.

A Canadian national claiming to be one of the tourists has posted on Facebook, describing the belief as a mere “superstition” and called the Malaysian tourism minister as “idiot.”

“It is not based on logic, but superstition. I utterly do not care for superstition,” said Emil Kaminski, founder of travel blog Monkeetime, on his Facebook page.

On June 5, a magnitude 6.0 earthquake jolted Sabah in Malaysia, which killed 18 people including a Filipino.