Wednesday September 15, 2010
85-year-old is a citizen at last
By SEREAN LAU
[email protected]
KUALA LUMPUR: Ross Francis Xavier, 85, who was unable to go overseas for 37 years, will finally be able to travel with his newly-acquired Malaysian citizenship. Xavier could not believe it when he was told to collect his citizenship from the Home Ministry on Aug 16. “For two years, I have tirelessly made trips to Putrajaya with the fervent hope of getting an answer for my Malaysian citizenship application.
“My greatest desire is to leave this planet as a citizen. “No words can express my happiness when I made my last trip to the ministry to collect my letter. Now I am able visit my relatives in Singapore and go anywhere. I am no longer stateless,” said Xavier, who in 1973, had lost an official certificate declaring him a citizen.
Officially a Malaysian: Xavier proudly showing his approval letter issued by the Home Ministry after 37 years of longing for citizenship.
Since then, he could not obtain a citizenship here or from the Indian embassy. While Xavier’s father Dr M.S. Soosai and his four siblings were born in Malaysia, he was born in Chennai, India when his father went to India to further his studies. Xavier came to Malaysia when he was four months old. He thanked the Government, Home Ministry secretary-general Datuk Mahmood Adam, assistant secretary-general Zaleha Mohamed Tahir and Suhakam for helping him.
Suhakam, he said, had helped him draft an appeal letter in June. Xavier, who studied at the Bukit Mertajam High School in Penang joined the British army in Singapore in 1947 for eight years and obtained a Singapore identity card in 1955 after completing his army service. However, a year later, he returned to Malaysia to work as a petition writer and eventually opened an office offering secretarial services.
