PUTRAJAYA: A former chief investigator at the Padang Besar police headquarters was instructed by his district police chief to lodge a false police report pertaining to the arrest of five illegal immigrants during the Wang Kelian operations in March 2015.
Inspector Husyairi Musa told the Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) into the Wang Kelian human trafficking camps and mass graves that Supt Rizani Che Ismail had specifically ordered him to mask the details of his report by claiming it was he (Husyairi) who arrested the individuals, despite that not being the case.
According to Husyairi, on March 13, 2015, he was tasked by Rizani to collect the five suspects near Taman Negeri Perlis from Special Branch (SB) officers.
He said when his team arrived at the location around 4.30pm, the immigrants were handed over to them by about 10 individuals he believed were SBs, with their hands bound by cable ties, before they were taken to the Padang Besar police headquarters.
However, in his police report filed the next day, parts of which were read out during the RCI public hearing yesterday, Husyairi had claimed that he had made the arrests himself after coming across the five foreigners who were acting suspiciously during a patrol in Wang Kelian.
“Pertaining to this report, I received orders from the district police chief (Rizani) to draft it as such,” he said, here, yesterday, without elaborating why.
When asked by former Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Norian Mai, a member of the RCI, to confirm if he had indeed stumbled upon the illegal immigrants, Husyairi said: “No. I just received an order (to file the report as such) and I acted based on this order.”
Norian then questioned if this can be considered a false report and claimed that he could be charged for this.
To this, Husyairi said he agreed that the report contained false information, but said he was merely taking orders from his superior.
Husyairi said following the arrest, his team also found one pistol inside one of the suspect’s pockets, whom he identified as Thai citizen Biau Wong Chunpo, 44.
He also found cash amounting to RM410 and 100 Thai Baht in a bag belonging to another suspect, Suriyan who is a 21-year-old Thai, and a machete in the possession of a 15-year-old Myanmar citizen. The other two suspects were also Myanmar, aged 16 and 17, respectively.
Earlier when taking the stand as the 17th witness, Inspector Mohamad Afiq Sarmid, who was then a VAT 69 Commando Troop 8 commander who led a team of 25 officers to conduct survey operations at the Genting Perah hill in Wang Kelian between March 11 and 13, 2015, said it was his team that nabbed the five said illegal immigrants.
He said the arrest was made while scouring the hill to verify the existence of more human trafficking camps, following the discovery of the first camp in January 2015.
According to Mohamad Afiq, he was then instructed by his superior to handover the suspects to the SB.
