Kelantan sultan’s wife refutes divorce rumours

KUALA LUMPUR — Rihana Oksana Voevodina has refuted reports that she is divorced from Sultan of Kelantan Sultan Muhammad V.

The former beauty queen from Russia told Malaysiakini she remained the ruler’s wife and that a divorce had not been filed.

“I have not been given any admonition of divorce (sic),” she said.

“I was in Russia with my child. We were not in Singapore in June for divorce proceedings.”

News reports had said she was in Singapore last month for divorce proceedings.

“This is an act of provocation, we have never been divorced,” she said, of the claims.

It was widely reported that the Sultan and Rihana were no longer married.

The New Straits Times reported on July 17 that the couple had divorced, saying a copy of the divorce certificate that was circulating online had been confirmed by a source to be genuine.

It added that it was a “talak tiga” divorce, or an irrevocable divorce, the most severe divorce in Islam.

The couple cannot remarry each other unless the woman marries another man, and this man, of his own free will, divorces her or dies.

The date of the divorce was listed as June 22 and it was marked as taking place in Singapore.

On Friday, a spokesman for the Syariah Court in Singapore told BERITAmediacorp that there are no records of divorce filed by the couple at Syariah Court Singapore.

Kelantan palace officials have yet to respond to the rumours.

Earlier this week, these officials issued a statement saying that royal titles were only to be conferred by an official announcement from the palace.

It appeared to be in response to Rihana’s Instagram post in which she refers to her son as the “Tengku Mahkota Kelantan” (Crown Prince of Kelantan).

The statement made no mention of the baby or post but said that the sultan’s brother Tengku Muhamad Faiz Petra was the rightful heir to the throne. AGENCIES