KOTA KINABALU: Veteran Sabah politician Datuk Hiew King Cheu passed away at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital II here early Tuesday (Oct 15) morning.
He was 72.
According to family members, Hiew was in the palliative care unit of the hospital where he was undergoing treatment for lung cancer.
He leaves behind his wife Datuk Julia Thien, two daughters and a son.
According to family members, arrangements are being made for his funeral and the public will be informed.
Hiew was DAP Member of Parliament for Kota Kinabalu from 2008 to 2013 and Luyang assemblyman from 2013 to 2018.
He left the party in 2014 to be an independent assemblyman after an internal falling out in Sabah DAP.
He subsequently joined Sabah MCA where he served out his term as Luyang assemblyman in the then Barisan Nasional-led state government.
In 2018, he left to join the newly formed Parti Gagasan Rakyat Sabah (PGRS) as a deputy president.
He unsuccessfully contested the Luyang seat in the 2020 state election under PGRS.
He subsequently left the party but remained politically active.
Hiew, an engineer by training, began his political involvement with the Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP) in the mid-1990s.
