Wang Kelian : Who is the real target?

PETALING JAYA: Authorities had already known about the mass graves in Wang Kelian on the Malaysia-Thai border, but delayed announcing it until four months after they were first discovered, the New Straits Times reported today following a two-year investigation.

The daily also said police had cleared the campsite where the mass graves were discovered, destroying potential evidences at the crime scenes before they were processed by forensics personnel.

It added that the probe revealed that Wang Kelian may have been part of a “massive, coordinated cover up”.

In early May 2015, then inspector-general of police (IFP) Khalid Abu Bakar had announced the discovery of more than 130 graves in 28 temporary camps of a human trafficking syndicate in Wang Kelian.

This followed the discovery of similar graves in Thailand, which led Thai police to launch a massive crackdown on human trafficking networks.

But NST said the Malaysian police had already known about the mass graves at the campsite in a dense part of a jungle on the Thailand-Malaysian borders as early as January 2015.

Why did the police order the destruction of these camps, which were potential crime scenes, before they could be processed by forensics personnel?” the paper asked.

The remains of at least 100 foreigners, most of them believed to be Rohingya victims of human trafficking, were found in shallow unmarked graves in Wang Kelian in 2015. There were about 139 graves said to have been found, with some being empty, according to police at the time.

NST said a police report was filed on Jan 19, 2015 after two general operations force (GOF) men discovered “an observation post” in the middle of the jungle of the Wang Kelian State Park. They were joined by 30 others in a raiding party that followed a trail which led to a campsite, where they discovered the human trafficking racket.

“It was during this mission that the men discovered the first 30 graves. Jan 19, 2015 was when the Wang Kelian tragedy and the mass graves were discovered; not on May 25, as we were led to believe,” the report said.

NST said its investigation also took them to the campsite, and its journalists also interviewed countless personalities directly involved in the case.

“The team checked and re-checked the facts, sought corroborative witnesses and verified facts through multiple, independent sources, all to build an airtight case,” the report said.

It said after efforts to get the then police chief Khalid failed, its journalists finally cornered him, adding that he only agreed to speak on condition his comments would not be published.

“It took a while before he finally spoke. And when he did, his voice betrayed the enormity of what he was about to tell us,” the paper said.

“The NST Special Probes Team is bound by journalistic ethics in honouring the condition Khalid imposed, which was not to publish what he had told us.”