"Definitely, investigations into this must be carried out. I want the authorities to get to the bottom of this. "There will be no closing of the Wang Kelian file. "Investigations have to be detailed out. The IPs (investigation papers) have to be compiled for legal action to be taken, especially against those who are directly, or indirectly, involved... including our own officers." - Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi The NST Special Probes Team revisited the crime scene before the camps were completely destroyed. The team tracked down and interviewed scores of witnesses and those directly involved in the atrocities in Wang Kelian.
Text by FARRAH NAZ KARIM & ALIZA SHAH Images by New Straits Times Press cameraman / FARRAH NAZ KARIM & ALIZA SHAH / Sources Interactive Report by FAIRUL AHMADI
The secrets of Wang Kelian exposed
IT began with a murmur; a distant hint of a faint rumour that quickly reached a deafening crescendo. Soon, it was hard to ignore the possibility that there could be more to the 2015 case of the Wang Kelian human trafficking tragedy than the authorities had let on.
For more than two years, The New Straits Times Special Probes Team had been piecing together the real story behind what had been described as the worst human trafficking tragedy in Malaysian history, with more than 150 lives lost. The victims, these men, women and children, the majority of whom were Rohingya, had fled the atrocities in their country for a second chance at life. Instead, they fell into the hands of greedy human trafficking syndicates, allegedly working with corrupt enforcement officers.
In the end, these nameless, faceless victims lay dead, buried in shallow graves deep inside the jungles of Perlis, in the north of Peninsular Malaysia. It has been two years, and justice, has so far, eluded them. The perpetrators of this atrocity? It would seem that they have quietly disappeared. No less than 139 graves were eventually found, with at least 150 remains from 28 camps.
Following the discovery of human trafficking camps and mass graves by the Thais on May 1, 2015, Malaysian police launched Op Wawasan Khas on May 11, to check for the same on the Malaysian side of the border. On May 25, police announced the discovery of 139 graves and some two dozen, similar, squalid camps on the Malaysian side of the border. This was the official version as we know it. The NST Special Probes Team later discovered some serious redacting in the reports and papers filed in the course of the police investigations and the way this case was presented to the world. Evidence we uncovered seemed to suggest a massive, coordinated cover-up. One of the biggest revelations was that the human trafficking death camps had been discovered months earlier, on Jan 19, 2015, and not May 24, as was announced in a press conference by the Malaysian police on May 25. Police also said that the camps had been abandoned three weeks earlier.
In fact, the Perlis General Operations Force had called for a press conference on Jan 20, to announce that they had picked up 38 migrants from Wang Kelian the day before. They neglected to mention that they had also found 37 graves on the same day.
Another huge question mark is, why did police order the destruction of these camps - potential crime scenes - before they were processed by forensics. Also, why did the officer, who was tasked with carrying out the order, destroy only a small portion of the camp?
In the hunt for the truth, the team pored over scores of official documents and reams of reports. The team checked and re-checked facts, sought corroborative witnesses, verified facts through multiple, independent sources, all to build an ironclad case in this most horrific story of human trafficking, torture, and mass deaths, to have ever taken place in the country. WHAT WE UNCOVERED On Jan 19, 2015, a particularly inquisitive GOF trooper on a routine patrol at a supposed 'dumpsite' in the jungles of Wang Kelian, sensed that something was not quite right when he saw foam, and what smelled like detergent, coming from upstream, from an area that was supposed to be uninhabited. He probed further and discovered a trail that led to the Mata Ayer Forest Reserve. He followed the trail and stumbled upon an observation post" up in a tree.
The trooper called for backup and was supposedly joined by a 30-man assault team. Another report, however, said only eight came. The team was then split into two cells. They hiked to the top of Bukit Wang Burma, in the Nakawan Range. There, before them, was a 30mx30m campsite. One assault team observed several roving patrols and six cages where scores of men and women were held captive, under the watchful eye of several foreign men armed with M-16 rifles. The other, inexplicably, only turned up much later, after the presence of the assault team was 'discovered'. According to the official after-action report, an estimated 150 individuals, who had been caged up earlier, had "escaped into the jungle". How these men and women had managed to 'escape' the highly-trained assault team, remains unknown. The armed syndicate members, also, had miraculously, "managed to vanish into the jungle"
The GOF assault team's tactical procedures and protocols, were not made clear in the report. However, the normal practice would be to first establish a cordon sanitaire around the camp's periphery to prevent "squirters" from escaping. The 38 migrants rounded up were immediately brought down to the Padang Besar police headquarters for processing at 9.30pm that day. The "ground commander", 'JK', briefed his bosses in the state on the find, the next morning. Allegations are that he had concealed many vital information in the briefing, including the discovery of mass graves. Investigators of the Wang Kelian case believe that syndicates in Thailand and Malaysia had been working closely in running a lucrative, illicit business, virtually unmolested to fuel by the demand for illegal labour from as far away as Pahang and Johor. They also identified a local with a prominent physical feature and who suffered from vitiligo, who had been acting as the middleman for both the Thai and Malaysian syndicates. Eleven other locals, whose roles were to "deliver the goods", were also identified.
THE CONTRADICTING REPORT Meanwhile, an independent team within the police force, filed its own report, which poked holes in the version that was presented at the meeting with the state's second-in-command, as well as the police reports which 'JK' lodged. This independent report confirmed that the eight-man assault team was split into two. One was led by the GOF trooper who had made the 'soap' discovery, and the other, by an officer specially sent in by 'JK' for the mission. They took different routes, according to the report. However, the assault team led by the officer never reached the target. As the other team lay low, waiting, they heard one of the guards shouting, "Run! The police are here!" It was between three and five minutes later that the team with the officer, showed up. The report quoted witnesses as saying that the officer had ordered the team to pull back. THE OTHER FIND The NST Special Probes Team was also let in on a March discovery of another camp in Bukit Genting Perah, one of the largest human trafficking camps in the hills here. This find was by a team of highly-trained men, including commandos, on a snatch-and-grab mission. The orders that were cut for this secret mission stemmed from the deafening silence that followed the first discovery of these death camps. They brought down five suspects. The status of the suspects remains unknown, although the NST Special Probes Team was made to understand that many of them were merely cited for immigration offences.
For the record, these reports were carbon-copied to the state police chief and his deputy, the state National Security Council, the Perlis and Kedah Border Intelligence Unit and the head of the Third Battalion of the GOF, among others. The NST Special Probes Team had, on one occasion, cornered the Deputy Inspector-General of Police, Tan Sri Noor Rashid Ibrahim to reveal to him what we already knew about the case, and if he had an explanation. He listened to every word, but refused to comment.
Trying a different tack, the team sent a number of text messages to the then Inspector-General of Police, Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar. They too, went unanswered. Finally, the team managed to track him down at a bowling event in the city and asked him about Wang Kelian. After listening to us, he agreed to talk, but on one condition - that the conversation would not be recorded. His ADC made sure of it. The team had a number of burning questions, not least of which was why the discovery of these death camps had been kept secret. What was the overwhelming justification in allowing the slaughter of scores of innocents, including women and children, to continue unabated? Khalid was visibly apprehensive when confronted with these questions. 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 NST Special Probes Team is bound by journalistic ethics in honouring the condition Khalid had imposed, which was not to publish what he had told us. On Monday, the Team presented its findings to Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, who then ordered investigations into the case to be revisited. Unless a full probe into this matter is carried out, the world will never know, and justice will be denied.
*Read also the Dec 20, 2017 edition of the New Straits Times for coverage on this special investigation by the NST Special Probes Team.
"Definitely, investigations into this must be carried out. I want the authorities to get to the bottom of this. "There will be no closing of the Wang Kelian file. "Investigations have to be detailed out. The IPs (investigation papers) have to be compiled for legal action to be taken, especially against those who are directly, or indirectly, involved... including our own officers." - Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi The NST Special Probes Team revisited the crime scene before the camps were completely destroyed. The team tracked down and interviewed scores of witnesses and those directly involved in the atrocities in Wang Kelian.
Text by FARRAH NAZ KARIM & ALIZA SHAH Images by New Straits Times Press cameraman / FARRAH NAZ KARIM & ALIZA SHAH / Sources Interactive Report by FAIRUL AHMADI The secrets of Wang Kelian exposed IT began with a murmur; a distant hint of a faint rumour that quickly reached a deafening crescendo. Soon, it was hard to ignore the possibility that there could be more to the 2015 case of the Wang Kelian human trafficking tragedy than the authorities had let on.
For more than two years, The New Straits Times Special Probes Team had been piecing together the real story behind what had been described as the worst human trafficking tragedy in Malaysian history, with more than 150 lives lost. The victims, these men, women and children, the majority of whom were Rohingya, had fled the atrocities in their country for a second chance at life. Instead, they fell into the hands of greedy human trafficking syndicates, allegedly working with corrupt enforcement officers. In the end, these nameless, faceless victims lay dead, buried in shallow graves deep inside the jungles of Perlis, in the north of Peninsular Malaysia. It has been two years, and justice, has so far, eluded them. The perpetrators of this atrocity? It would seem that they have quietly disappeared.
No less than 139 graves were eventually found, with at least 150 remains from 28 camps.
Following the discovery of human trafficking camps and mass graves by the Thais on May 1, 2015, Malaysian police launched Op Wawasan Khas on May 11, to check for the same on the Malaysian side of the border. On May 25, police announced the discovery of 139 graves and some two dozen, similar, squalid camps on the Malaysian side of the border. This was the official version as we know it. The NST Special Probes Team later discovered some serious redacting in the reports and papers filed in the course of the police investigations and the way this case was presented to the world. Evidence we uncovered seemed to suggest a massive, coordinated cover-up. One of the biggest revelations was that the human trafficking death camps had been discovered months earlier, on Jan 19, 2015, and not May 24, as was announced in a press conference by the Malaysian police on May 25. Police also said that the camps had been abandoned three weeks earlier.
In fact, the Perlis General Operations Force had called for a press conference on Jan 20, to announce that they had picked up 38 migrants from Wang Kelian the day before. They neglected to mention that they had also found 37 graves on the same day.
Another huge question mark is, why did police order the destruction of these camps - potential crime scenes - before they were processed by forensics. Also, why did the officer, who was tasked with carrying out the order, destroy only a small portion of the camp?
In the hunt for the truth, the team pored over scores of official documents and reams of reports. The team checked and re-checked facts, sought corroborative witnesses, verified facts through multiple, independent sources, all to build an ironclad case in this most horrific story of human trafficking, torture, and mass deaths, to have ever taken place in the country. WHAT WE UNCOVERED On Jan 19, 2015, a particularly inquisitive GOF trooper on a routine patrol at a supposed 'dumpsite' in the jungles of Wang Kelian, sensed that something was not quite right when he saw foam, and what smelled like detergent, coming from upstream, from an area that was supposed to be uninhabited. He probed further and discovered a trail that led to the Mata Ayer Forest Reserve. He followed the trail and stumbled upon an observation post" up in a tree.
The trooper called for backup and was supposedly joined by a 30-man assault team. Another report, however, said only eight came. The team was then split into two cells. They hiked to the top of Bukit Wang Burma, in the Nakawan Range. There, before them, was a 30mx30m campsite. One assault team observed several roving patrols and six cages where scores of men and women were held captive, under the watchful eye of several foreign men armed with M-16 rifles. The other, inexplicably, only turned up much later, after the presence of the assault team was 'discovered'. According to the official after-action report, an estimated 150 individuals, who had been caged up earlier, had "escaped into the jungle". How these men and women had managed to 'escape' the highly-trained assault team, remains unknown. The armed syndicate members, also, had miraculously, "managed to vanish into the jungle"
The GOF assault team's tactical procedures and protocols, were not made clear in the report. However, the normal practice would be to first establish a cordon sanitaire around the camp's periphery to prevent "squirters" from escaping. The 38 migrants rounded up were immediately brought down to the Padang Besar police headquarters for processing at 9.30pm that day. The "ground commander", 'JK', briefed his bosses in the state on the find, the next morning. Allegations are that he had concealed many vital information in the briefing, including the discovery of mass graves. Investigators of the Wang Kelian case believe that syndicates in Thailand and Malaysia had been working closely in running a lucrative, illicit business, virtually unmolested to fuel by the demand for illegal labour from as far away as Pahang and Johor. They also identified a local with a prominent physical feature and who suffered from vitiligo, who had been acting as the middleman for both the Thai and Malaysian syndicates. Eleven other locals, whose roles were to "deliver the goods", were also identified.
THE CONTRADICTING REPORT Meanwhile, an independent team within the police force, filed its own report, which poked holes in the version that was presented at the meeting with the state's second-in-command, as well as the police reports which 'JK' lodged. This independent report confirmed that the eight-man assault team was split into two. One was led by the GOF trooper who had made the 'soap' discovery, and the other, by an officer specially sent in by 'JK' for the mission. They took different routes, according to the report. However, the assault team led by the officer never reached the target. As the other team lay low, waiting, they heard one of the guards shouting, "Run! The police are here!" It was between three and five minutes later that the team with the officer, showed up. The report quoted witnesses as saying that the officer had ordered the team to pull back. THE OTHER FIND The NST Special Probes Team was also let in on a March discovery of another camp in Bukit Genting Perah, one of the largest human trafficking camps in the hills here. This find was by a team of highly-trained men, including commandos, on a snatch-and-grab mission. The orders that were cut for this secret mission stemmed from the deafening silence that followed the first discovery of these death camps. They brought down five suspects. The status of the suspects remains unknown, although the NST Special Probes Team was made to understand that many of them were merely cited for immigration offences.
For the record, these reports were carbon-copied to the state police chief and his deputy, the state National Security Council, the Perlis and Kedah Border Intelligence Unit and the head of the Third Battalion of the GOF, among others. The NST Special Probes Team had, on one occasion, cornered the Deputy Inspector-General of Police, Tan Sri Noor Rashid Ibrahim to reveal to him what we already knew about the case, and if he had an explanation. He listened to every word, but refused to comment.
Trying a different tack, the team sent a number of text messages to the then Inspector-General of Police, Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar. They too, went unanswered. Finally, the team managed to track him down at a bowling event in the city and asked him about Wang Kelian. After listening to us, he agreed to talk, but on one condition - that the conversation would not be recorded. His ADC made sure of it. The team had a number of burning questions, not least of which was why the discovery of these death camps had been kept secret. What was the overwhelming justification in allowing the slaughter of scores of innocents, including women and children, to continue unabated? Khalid was visibly apprehensive when confronted with these questions. 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 NST Special Probes Team is bound by journalistic ethics in honouring the condition Khalid had imposed, which was not to publish what he had told us. On Monday, the Team presented its findings to Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, who then ordered investigations into the case to be revisited. Unless a full probe into this matter is carried out, the world will never know, and justice will be denied.
*Read also the Dec 20, 2017 edition of the New Straits Times for coverage on this special investigation by the NST Special Probes Team.
The NST Special Probes Team revisited the crime scene before the camps were completely destroyed. The team tracked down and interviewed scores of witnesses and those directly involved in the atrocities in Wang Kelian.
Text by FARRAH NAZ KARIM & ALIZA SHAH Images by New Straits Times Press cameraman / FARRAH NAZ KARIM & ALIZA SHAH / Sources Interactive Report by FAIRUL AHMADI The secrets of Wang Kelian exposed IT began with a murmur; a distant hint of a faint rumour that quickly reached a deafening crescendo. Soon, it was hard to ignore the possibility that there could be more to the 2015 case of the Wang Kelian human trafficking tragedy than the authorities had let on. For more than two years, The New Straits Times Special Probes Team had been piecing together the real story behind what had been described as the worst human trafficking tragedy in Malaysian history, with more than 150 lives lost. The victims, these men, women and children, the majority of whom were Rohingya, had fled the atrocities in their country for a second chance at life. Instead, they fell into the hands of greedy human trafficking syndicates, allegedly working with corrupt enforcement officers.
In the end, these nameless, faceless victims lay dead, buried in shallow graves deep inside the jungles of Perlis, in the north of Peninsular Malaysia. It has been two years, and justice, has so far, eluded them. The perpetrators of this atrocity? It would seem that they have quietly disappeared.
No less than 139 graves were eventually found, with at least 150 remains from 28 camps.
Following the discovery of human trafficking camps and mass graves by the Thais on May 1, 2015, Malaysian police launched Op Wawasan Khas on May 11, to check for the same on the Malaysian side of the border. On May 25, police announced the discovery of 139 graves and some two dozen, similar, squalid camps on the Malaysian side of the border. This was the official version as we know it. The NST Special Probes Team later discovered some serious redacting in the reports and papers filed in the course of the police investigations and the way this case was presented to the world. Evidence we uncovered seemed to suggest a massive, coordinated cover-up. One of the biggest revelations was that the human trafficking death camps had been discovered months earlier, on Jan 19, 2015, and not May 24, as was announced in a press conference by the Malaysian police on May 25. Police also said that the camps had been abandoned three weeks earlier. In fact, the Perlis General Operations Force had called for a press conference on Jan 20, to announce that they had picked up 38 migrants from Wang Kelian the day before. They neglected to mention that they had also found 37 graves on the same day.
Another huge question mark is, why did police order the destruction of these camps - potential crime scenes - before they were processed by forensics. Also, why did the officer, who was tasked with carrying out the order, destroy only a small portion of the camp?
In the hunt for the truth, the team pored over scores of official documents and reams of reports. The team checked and re-checked facts, sought corroborative witnesses, verified facts through multiple, independent sources, all to build an ironclad case in this most horrific story of human trafficking, torture, and mass deaths, to have ever taken place in the country. WHAT WE UNCOVERED On Jan 19, 2015, a particularly inquisitive GOF trooper on a routine patrol at a supposed 'dumpsite' in the jungles of Wang Kelian, sensed that something was not quite right when he saw foam, and what smelled like detergent, coming from upstream, from an area that was supposed to be uninhabited. He probed further and discovered a trail that led to the Mata Ayer Forest Reserve. He followed the trail and stumbled upon an observation post" up in a tree.
The trooper called for backup and was supposedly joined by a 30-man assault team. Another report, however, said only eight came. The team was then split into two cells. They hiked to the top of Bukit Wang Burma, in the Nakawan Range. There, before them, was a 30mx30m campsite. One assault team observed several roving patrols and six cages where scores of men and women were held captive, under the watchful eye of several foreign men armed with M-16 rifles. The other, inexplicably, only turned up much later, after the presence of the assault team was 'discovered'. According to the official after-action report, an estimated 150 individuals, who had been caged up earlier, had "escaped into the jungle". How these men and women had managed to 'escape' the highly-trained assault team, remains unknown. The armed syndicate members, also, had miraculously, "managed to vanish into the jungle"
The GOF assault team's tactical procedures and protocols, were not made clear in the report. However, the normal practice would be to first establish a cordon sanitaire around the camp's periphery to prevent "squirters" from escaping. The 38 migrants rounded up were immediately brought down to the Padang Besar police headquarters for processing at 9.30pm that day. The "ground commander", 'JK', briefed his bosses in the state on the find, the next morning. Allegations are that he had concealed many vital information in the briefing, including the discovery of mass graves. Investigators of the Wang Kelian case believe that syndicates in Thailand and Malaysia had been working closely in running a lucrative, illicit business, virtually unmolested to fuel by the demand for illegal labour from as far away as Pahang and Johor. They also identified a local with a prominent physical feature and who suffered from vitiligo, who had been acting as the middleman for both the Thai and Malaysian syndicates. Eleven other locals, whose roles were to "deliver the goods", were also identified.
THE CONTRADICTING REPORT Meanwhile, an independent team within the police force, filed its own report, which poked holes in the version that was presented at the meeting with the state's second-in-command, as well as the police reports which 'JK' lodged. This independent report confirmed that the eight-man assault team was split into two. One was led by the GOF trooper who had made the 'soap' discovery, and the other, by an officer specially sent in by 'JK' for the mission. They took different routes, according to the report. However, the assault team led by the officer never reached the target. As the other team lay low, waiting, they heard one of the guards shouting, "Run! The police are here!" It was between three and five minutes later that the team with the officer, showed up. The report quoted witnesses as saying that the officer had ordered the team to pull back. THE OTHER FIND The NST Special Probes Team was also let in on a March discovery of another camp in Bukit Genting Perah, one of the largest human trafficking camps in the hills here. This find was by a team of highly-trained men, including commandos, on a snatch-and-grab mission. The orders that were cut for this secret mission stemmed from the deafening silence that followed the first discovery of these death camps. They brought down five suspects. The status of the suspects remains unknown, although the NST Special Probes Team was made to understand that many of them were merely cited for immigration offences.
For the record, these reports were carbon-copied to the state police chief and his deputy, the state National Security Council, the Perlis and Kedah Border Intelligence Unit and the head of the Third Battalion of the GOF, among others. The NST Special Probes Team had, on one occasion, cornered the Deputy Inspector-General of Police, Tan Sri Noor Rashid Ibrahim to reveal to him what we already knew about the case, and if he had an explanation. He listened to every word, but refused to comment.
Trying a different tack, the team sent a number of text messages to the then Inspector-General of Police, Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar. They too, went unanswered. Finally, the team managed to track him down at a bowling event in the city and asked him about Wang Kelian. After listening to us, he agreed to talk, but on one condition - that the conversation would not be recorded. His ADC made sure of it. The team had a number of burning questions, not least of which was why the discovery of these death camps had been kept secret. What was the overwhelming justification in allowing the slaughter of scores of innocents, including women and children, to continue unabated? Khalid was visibly apprehensive when confronted with these questions. 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 NST Special Probes Team is bound by journalistic ethics in honouring the condition Khalid had imposed, which was not to publish what he had told us. On Monday, the Team presented its findings to Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, who then ordered investigations into the case to be revisited. Unless a full probe into this matter is carried out, the world will never know, and justice will be denied.
"Definitely, investigations into this must be carried out. I want the authorities to get to the bottom of this. "There will be no closing of the Wang Kelian file. "Investigations have to be detailed out. The IPs (investigation papers) have to be compiled for legal action to be taken, especially against those who are directly, or indirectly, involved... including our own officers." - Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi
*Read also the Dec 20, 2017 edition of the New Straits Times for coverage on this special investigation by the NST Special Probes Team.
The secrets of Wang Kelian exposed Text by FARRAH NAZ KARIM & ALIZA SHAH Images by New Straits Times Press cameraman / FARRAH NAZ KARIM & ALIZA SHAH / Sources Interactive Report by FAIRUL AHMADI IT began with a murmur; a distant hint of a faint rumour that quickly reached a deafening crescendo. Soon, it was hard to ignore the possibility that there could be more to the 2015 case of the Wang Kelian human trafficking tragedy than the authorities had let on. For more than two years, The New Straits Times Special Probes Team had been piecing together the real story behind what had been described as the worst human trafficking tragedy in Malaysian history, with more than 150 lives lost. The victims, these men, women and children, the majority of whom were Rohingya, had fled the atrocities in their country for a second chance at life. Instead, they fell into the hands of greedy human trafficking syndicates, allegedly working with corrupt enforcement officers.
In the end, these nameless, faceless victims lay dead, buried in shallow graves deep inside the jungles of Perlis, in the north of Peninsular Malaysia. It has been two years, and justice, has so far, eluded them. The perpetrators of this atrocity? It would seem that they have quietly disappeared. No less than 139 graves were eventually found, with at least 150 remains from 28 camps.
Following the discovery of human trafficking camps and mass graves by the Thais on May 1, 2015, Malaysian police launched Op Wawasan Khas on May 11, to check for the same on the Malaysian side of the border. On May 25, police announced the discovery of 139 graves and some two dozen, similar, squalid camps on the Malaysian side of the border. This was the official version as we know it. The NST Special Probes Team later discovered some serious redacting in the reports and papers filed in the course of the police investigations and the way this case was presented to the world. Evidence we uncovered seemed to suggest a massive, coordinated cover-up. One of the biggest revelations was that the human trafficking death camps had been discovered months earlier, on Jan 19, 2015, and not May 24, as was announced in a press conference by the Malaysian police on May 25. Police also said that the camps had been abandoned three weeks earlier. In fact, the Perlis General Operations Force had called for a press conference on Jan 20, to announce that they had picked up 38 migrants from Wang Kelian the day before. They neglected to mention that they had also found 37 graves on the same day.
Another huge question mark is, why did police order the destruction of these camps - potential crime scenes - before they were processed by forensics. Also, why did the officer, who was tasked with carrying out the order, destroy only a small portion of the camp? The NST Special Probes Team revisited the crime scene before the camps were completely destroyed. The team tracked down and interviewed scores of witnesses and those directly involved in the atrocities in Wang Kelian.
In the hunt for the truth, the team pored over scores of official documents and reams of reports. The team checked and re-checked facts, sought corroborative witnesses, verified facts through multiple, independent sources, all to build an ironclad case in this most horrific story of human trafficking, torture, and mass deaths, to have ever taken place in the country. WHAT WE UNCOVERED On Jan 19, 2015, a particularly inquisitive GOF trooper on a routine patrol at a supposed 'dumpsite' in the jungles of Wang Kelian, sensed that something was not quite right when he saw foam, and what smelled like detergent, coming from upstream, from an area that was supposed to be uninhabited. He probed further and discovered a trail that led to the Mata Ayer Forest Reserve. He followed the trail and stumbled upon an observation post" up in a tree.
The trooper called for backup and was supposedly joined by a 30-man assault team. Another report, however, said only eight came. The team was then split into two cells. They hiked to the top of Bukit Wang Burma, in the Nakawan Range. There, before them, was a 30mx30m campsite. One assault team observed several roving patrols and six cages where scores of men and women were held captive, under the watchful eye of several foreign men armed with M-16 rifles. The other, inexplicably, only turned up much later, after the presence of the assault team was 'discovered'. According to the official after-action report, an estimated 150 individuals, who had been caged up earlier, had "escaped into the jungle". How these men and women had managed to 'escape' the highly-trained assault team, remains unknown. The armed syndicate members, also, had miraculously, "managed to vanish into the jungle"
The GOF assault team's tactical procedures and protocols, were not made clear in the report. However, the normal practice would be to first establish a cordon sanitaire around the camp's periphery to prevent "squirters" from escaping. The 38 migrants rounded up were immediately brought down to the Padang Besar police headquarters for processing at 9.30pm that day. The "ground commander", 'JK', briefed his bosses in the state on the find, the next morning. Allegations are that he had concealed many vital information in the briefing, including the discovery of mass graves. Investigators of the Wang Kelian case believe that syndicates in Thailand and Malaysia had been working closely in running a lucrative, illicit business, virtually unmolested to fuel by the demand for illegal labour from as far away as Pahang and Johor. They also identified a local with a prominent physical feature and who suffered from vitiligo, who had been acting as the middleman for both the Thai and Malaysian syndicates. Eleven other locals, whose roles were to "deliver the goods", were also identified.
THE CONTRADICTING REPORT Meanwhile, an independent team within the police force, filed its own report, which poked holes in the version that was presented at the meeting with the state's second-in-command, as well as the police reports which 'JK' lodged. This independent report confirmed that the eight-man assault team was split into two. One was led by the GOF trooper who had made the 'soap' discovery, and the other, by an officer specially sent in by 'JK' for the mission. They took different routes, according to the report. However, the assault team led by the officer never reached the target. As the other team lay low, waiting, they heard one of the guards shouting, "Run! The police are here!" It was between three and five minutes later that the team with the officer, showed up. The report quoted witnesses as saying that the officer had ordered the team to pull back. THE OTHER FIND The NST Special Probes Team was also let in on a March discovery of another camp in Bukit Genting Perah, one of the largest human trafficking camps in the hills here. This find was by a team of highly-trained men, including commandos, on a snatch-and-grab mission. The orders that were cut for this secret mission stemmed from the deafening silence that followed the first discovery of these death camps. They brought down five suspects. The status of the suspects remains unknown, although the NST Special Probes Team was made to understand that many of them were merely cited for immigration offences.
For the record, these reports were carbon-copied to the state police chief and his deputy, the state National Security Council, the Perlis and Kedah Border Intelligence Unit and the head of the Third Battalion of the GOF, among others. The NST Special Probes Team had, on one occasion, cornered the Deputy Inspector-General of Police, Tan Sri Noor Rashid Ibrahim to reveal to him what we already knew about the case, and if he had an explanation. He listened to every word, but refused to comment.
Trying a different tack, the team sent a number of text messages to the then Inspector-General of Police, Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar. They too, went unanswered. Finally, the team managed to track him down at a bowling event in the city and asked him about Wang Kelian. After listening to us, he agreed to talk, but on one condition - that the conversation would not be recorded. His ADC made sure of it. The team had a number of burning questions, not least of which was why the discovery of these death camps had been kept secret. What was the overwhelming justification in allowing the slaughter of scores of innocents, including women and children, to continue unabated? Khalid was visibly apprehensive when confronted with these questions. 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 NST Special Probes Team is bound by journalistic ethics in honouring the condition Khalid had imposed, which was not to publish what he had told us. On Monday, the Team presented its findings to Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, who then ordered investigations into the case to be revisited. Unless a full probe into this matter is carried out, the world will never know, and justice will be denied.
"Definitely, investigations into this must be carried out. I want the authorities to get to the bottom of this. "There will be no closing of the Wang Kelian file. "Investigations have to be detailed out. The IPs (investigation papers) have to be compiled for legal action to be taken, especially against those who are directly, or indirectly, involved... including our own officers." - Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi
*Read also the Dec 20, 2017 edition of the New Straits Times for coverage on this special investigation by the NST Special Probes Team.