Raja Bahrin invites ex-wife to daughter’s wedding

RAJA Datuk Kamarul Bahrin Ahmad Shah, who brought his two children home by boat from Australia via Indonesia in 1992, has invited his ex-wife Jacqueline Pascarl-Gillespie to their daughter’s wedding next month.

Utusan Malaysia reported that Raja Shahirah Aishah, 23, will wed Syarul Reza, the frontman of local indie band Love Me Butch, on March 7 at Aryani Resort, Merang, in Terengganu.

Raja Bahrin said that although the local press was invited to the wedding, he hoped that his children’s lives would not be sensationalised.

The custody battle between Raja Bahrin and Pascarl-Gillespie received wide attention from both the Malaysian and Australian press at that time.

In 1992, Raja Bahrin brought Raja Shahirah and her brother Raja Mohamad Baharuddin, then seven and nine respectively, back to Malaysia from Australia after their mother took them there without his consent.

The case made headlines as Pascarl-Gillespie claimed that the children were kidnapped by him.

Raja Shahirah and her brother were in the spotlight again when they visited their mother in Melbourne in 2006.

> After top musician Hashridz Murshim Hassim, or Acis, was listed as one of the teaching staff members for Akademi Fantasia 7, there are rumours now that his wife, singer Datuk Sheila Majid, will be the first woman principal of the hit reality TV show.

Previously, Astro had placed another husband-and-wife team on the show, with M. Nasir as the principal and his wife, actress Marlia Musa, on the teaching staff, reported Harian Metro.

The teaching staff line-up for the latest season of Akademi Fantasia has been announced and Fatimah Abu Bakar stays on as motivational and English language teacher, Siti Hajar Ismail as technical vocal teacher and Syafizawati Sharif as performance vocal teacher.

Ida Nerina is the new acting and performing arts coach while A. Aris Kadir takes over Linda Jasmine’s spot as resident choreographer.

A.C. Mizal and Sarimah Ibrahim will continue to helm the show as the hosts. Other News & Views is compiled from the vernacular newspapers (Bahasa Malaysia, Chinese and Tamil dailies). As such, stories are grouped according to the respective language/medium. Where a paragraph begins with a > sign, it denotes a separate news item.