Ambiga: Video clip forms ‘real basis’ for phantom voter claim

Ambiga (right) said the clip reinforced suspicions that foreigners were being brought in to sway the election results. — File picPETALING JAYA, May 4 — A just-released video of foreigners suspected to have been flown in to vote in tomorrow’s polls shows that there is “real basis” for such allegations,  Bersih co-chairman Datuk Ambiga Sreenevasan said today.

She said the video provided by Asalkan Bukan Umno (ABU) leader Haris Ibrahim adds to the body of evidence already reported in the media.

In the video screened at a news conference here today, which Haris took during the early hours of yesterday morning outside KLIA, six vans ― two of which bore the logo of the federal RISDA agency ― were shown preparing to transport Nepalese nationals, who had just arrived on a Malindo Air flight, to oil palm plantations in the peninsula.

“There is real basis for the conclusion that people are being brought in and we believe many of them foreigners, they may well have ICs as per Project IC and that they were brought in for a certain purpose,” Ambiga said.

Haris said that upon obtaining information that a chartered flight ― MH 8611 ― was due to arrive in KLIA at 1.30am yesterday, he had put together a group of 30 people to stake out the airport.

 “The MH8611 that came in apparently was empty. But a Malindo flight we detected had Nepali nationals,” he said.

He said that the Nepalis had exited through the arrival hall ― not through cargo holds as had been reported with previous batches ― and that they had been received by the six vans.

“They confirmed they were Nepalese. They said they were brought here to be taken to oil palm plantations.

“Those who were on hand to facilitate and assist were upset that we were taking photographs. We asked why their workers, if they were private workers, were being picked up in RiSDA vans. No answer,” he added

Haris also said that he and his team had tailed the vans but there were attempts to prevent them following.

“They would stop on the roadside in the hope that we would also stop, and they would drive into the lay-by and wait for half an hour, and when they saw we were not moving they would then take off,” he said.

“All that left us convinced that these were not all just genuine workers brought to KL for no other reason but for deployment to places of work.”

However, he said they were unsuccessful in tracing the final destination of the vans.

Ambiga said it was the “sudden influx” that was worrying, and said that one had only to connect the dots to see an emerging picture of what is happening.

“You tie that up with the emails that have been out there in the public domain already and the admission that people are being brought back to vote by those friendly to Barisan Nasional (BN) as well as the information that there are possibly 16 flights a day and it’s chartered. So you connect the dots; it’s not very difficult,” she said.

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