New Straits Times

CABINET NOD FOR INTERNAL PROBE

It must be done to restore public confidence, says minister

- ALIZA SHAH KUALA LUMPUR news@nst.com.my

THE cabinet on Wednesday discussed the 2015 Wang Kelian human traffickin­g tragedy and agreed that police should carry out an internal probe over an alleged cover-up in the investigat­ion into the case.

Several ministers, including Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk

Paul Low Seng Kuan, confirmed this with the New Straits Times yesterday.

A portal quoted Low as saying last week that an internal probe on the matter must be done to restore public confidence.

The report quoted the minister as saying the meeting had agreed that the authoritie­s “must get to the bottom of it”.

“The police themselves must launch their own investigat­ion.

“Who is involved? Were the officers and syndicates working together? Why are there discrepanc­ies (in the police’s internal reports)?” Low said, adding that the police’s Integrity and Standard Compliance Department (JIPS) must conduct an independen­t internal probe, too.

He said the Enforcemen­t Agency Integrity Commission could only step in if there was a complaint lodged.

“This will be a test of the police’s institutio­nal integrity and capability,” Low, the minister in charge of governance, integrity and human rights, was quoted as saying.

He said Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, who is also home minister, had stressed that it was imperative to get to the root causes of the problem.

“This is a high-profile case. “Many lives were lost, untold cruelty and a number of human rights violations were committed. The DPM (Zahid) said we need to get to the root causes.”

The NST had, on Wednesday, run on its cover its Special Probes Team’s four-page expose, which unearthed the dark secrets of Wang Kelian that claimed the lives of no less than 150 migrants, mostly from Rakhine State, who had come here, desperate for a second chance at life.

Among the revelation­s from the team’s exhaustive two-year investigat­ion were that the mass graves in Wang Kelian, Perlis, were discovered on Jan 19, 2015, and not May 24, as was announced during a police press conference on May 25.

The newspaper also highlighte­d the glaring discrepanc­ies in reports filed by those involved in the discovery, including those regarding syndicate members who were nabbed during those operations.

The team’s findings were then presented to Zahid, who ordered investigat­ions into the case be revisited. He vowed that “those with direct or indirect involvemen­t in the case will be made to pay for the crime”.

After the report was published, this newspaper yesterday frontpaged Bukit Aman’s response to a number of burning questions the NST had asked in its report. The answers from the federal police headquarte­rs were published verbatim.

The police, among others, assured that no matter who they might be, those behind this heinous crime against humanity would be brought to justice.

 ??  ?? Datuk Paul Low Seng Kuan
Datuk Paul Low Seng Kuan

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