‘I WAS INSTRUCTED TO DELETE PICTURES’
GOF commander says he was ordered to erase camp photos by his commanding officer
THERE seems to be more questions than answers at the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Wang Kelian human trafficking case.
This was after General Operations Force (GOF) company commander Assistant Superintendent M.M.A. Joeking revealed that he had been instructed to delete photos taken at the camps set up by human traffickers in Wang Kelian, Perlis, four years ago.
“In March or April in 2015, I was instructed to have anyone who took photos at the camp to delete their pictures,” he told the sevenmember
panel presiding over the inquiry.
The instructions, he said, came from then GOF 3rd Battalion Northern Brigade commanding officer Superintendent Wan Hamzah Wan Kadir.
Earlier, when asked whether he and his team were instructed to take photos of the camp when they came to demolish the set-up on Jan 21, Joeking said: “I did not receive any such instructions. But I know they did take pictures. There were 30 of us, maybe 10 of them took pictures.”
Joeking denied receiving any items seized from the camp during a raid on Jan 19, 2015, contrary to the statement given by the third witness, Inspector Mohd Mossadique Azni, on the first day of the inquiry.
On Wednesday, Mossadique told the RCI panel that he had told Joeking about the items seized from the camp when both of them went to lodge a report on Jan 19.
Joeking was testifying on the second day of the inquiry before a seven-member panel comprising former chief justice Tun Arifin Zakaria who is the chairman; former inspector-general of police Tan Sri Norian Mai (deputy chairman); former chief prosecutor Datuk Noorbahri Baharuddin; former Suhakam chief commissioner Tan Sri Razali Ismail; former head of research at the Attorney-General’s Chambers Datuk Junaidah Abdul Rahman; former Malaysian ambassador to Thailand Datuk Nazirah Hussin; and, former Public Accounts Committee deputy chairman Dr Tan Seng Giaw.
When Razali asked if the operation could be considered a failure as no members of the trafficking syndicate had been arrested, Joeking replied in the negative.
“In my opinion, it was not a failure. At least we got to know the existence of such a camp. We saved 38 lives that day.
“And because of the operation, the syndicate could no longer carry out their activities there. Hence, in my opinion, it was a successful operation,” he said.
Joeking said when he entered the campsite, he was surprised by its size despite having been briefed by Corporal Yusof Islam Hassan, who had testified on Wednesday.
“When I received the initial information, I thought illegal immigrants had set up a temporary camp there to find their way into Malaysia. I did not picture it as an area set up by a syndicate.”
Joeking said he had organised his 30 men into three teams during the operation on Jan 19.
“The teams were for surveillance, but they were given permission to raid if there was a need. The second team was placed on standby at the foot of the hill to cut off any illegal immigrants trying to escape. The third was on standby at the Wang Kelian post as back-up.”
Joeking said his team received orders to destroy the camp after a meeting at the Perlis police headquarters on Jan 20.
“The order was given by the then deputy state police chief. I did not question it as it was the standard practice for GOF to destroy enemy sites to stop them from reusing the place.
“However, on Jan 21, we stopped the demolition operation after we found graves at the site about 40 minutes after we started the operation. We didn’t want to destroy anything else in order to allow for further investigation.
“At that point, we had yet to demolish any of the structures, such as an observation tower. We had only destroyed some canvas roofs and food left at the site.”