WANG KELIAN RCI | A senior police officer, who was part of the discovery party that located human trafficking camps and mass graves in Wang Kelian in 2015, was allegedly twice probed and arrested by the MACC.
As witness Wan Hamzah Wan Kadir told the Wang Kelian Royal Commission of Inquiry today, the officer in question, MA Joeking, was investigated twice by the commission over the smuggling of ketum leaves, rice and diesel.
Wan Hamzah, the 14th witness in the RCI, served as the General Operations Force (GOF) 3rd Battalion Northern Brigade commanding officer in 2015, and Joeking as the 3rd Batalion Nothern Brigade Company B commander.
Joeking had led a team to surveil and later destroy the jungle transit camps near the Thai border. He was also the fifth witness called to testify in the RCI.
Wan Hamzah explained that MACC had begun observing Joeking (below) in 2011, arrested him in 2015 and 2019, and was suspended from duty last month.
"On March 2, 2015, MACC came to my office and arrested Joeking and several other officers.
"I was the witness and (the arrest) had nothing to do with (the discovery of the camps in) Wang Burma," he said.
Wan Hamzah added that following the arrests, he sent a letter to Joeking and the other officers affected not to conduct any operations with the GOF again.
The RCI panel also questioned Wan Hamzah on Joeking’s credibility as a witness, considering the latter’s prior arrests. He did not respond, however.
During his testimony on April 18, Joeking claimed that he was instructed by his commanding officer to delete photographs on the Wang Kelian operations, and that these photographs could only be stored at the battalion.
He said that Wan Hamzah was his immediate superior at the time.
Joeking also testified that he received specific instructions from the then-Perlis deputy police chief to destroy the camps without being given any reason to do so.
He later instructed his team to stop burning or destroying anything after discovering several graves in the area.
The deputy police chief in question, Md Zukir Md Isa (below), testified earlier today that the instruction to clear the camps was not to eliminate evidence, but rather prevent it from being used by undocumented migrants in the future.
In May 2015, some 139 graves containing 106 skeletal remains – believed to be of Rohingya migrants – along with 28 abandoned human trafficking camps on Bukit Wang Burma, were discovered in Wang Kelian.
An RCI into the matter was formed earlier this year, headed by former chief justice Ariffin Zakaria.
He is being assisted by former inspector-general of police Norian Mai, along with five commissioners – former ambassador to Thailand Nazirah Hussin, former Public Accounts Committee deputy chairperson Tan Seng Giaw, former chief prosecutor Noorbahri Baharuddin, former diplomat Razali Ismail, and former head of research at the Attorney-General’s Chambers Junaidah Abdul Rahman.
The inquiry has been given until September this year to prepare its report.
The RCI entered its fifth day today. - Mkini
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.