Parents tell magistrate they got IC from 'Project IC'

Parents who attend inquiries to verify the birth certificates of their children, whose births were registered late, have admitted to obtaining their own identity cards through one "Projek IC".

Magistrate Melissa Chia said this in Kota Kinabalu today, in her testimony before the royal commission of inquiry on illegal immigrants in Sabah.

Chia said the parents said so in cases before her in Tawau and Semporna, when explaining why they could not produce their birth certificates to authenticate their own citizenships.

The 85th witness in the inquiry, Chia also recalled an incident where she had to be "smuggled out" of a briefing in Tanjung Labian, Lahad Datu, by the police.

This had to take place after the villagers present turned into an angry mob upon realising that she could not "rubber stamp" their birth certificates.

The magistrate said parents in cases she handled in Semporna and Tawau had openly admitted to receiving their ICs through "Projek IC", while working in timber camps.

"On one or two occasions they said, 'Oh well, I was working in the timber camp and a group of people came and gave me a form to apply.

"'Thereafter, I got the blue IC.' This is all in the notes of proceedings (tendered as evidence to the RCI)," she said.

Chia had presided over cases involving people whose births or whose children's births were registered later than 42 days, requiring them to get a magistrate to endorse the birth certificates as authentic.

[More to follow]