KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 20 — As Sabah’s royal inquiry into Malaysia’s purported citizenship-for-votes scheme wound up today, an investigator disclosed his team’s fear and discomfort at the large foreigner population while on duty.
Federal officer Mohd Azman Mohd Sabri, who was appointed by the Attorney-General to act as the chief investigator in the Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) to look into the huge influx of foreigners into the north Borneo state, was asked by commissioner Henry Chin Poy Wu if he had ever felt threatened while working there.
“Yes, we definitely felt threatened, especially in Semporna,” the legal officer with Bukit Aman’s criminal investigation department was quoted as saying by The Malaysian Insider news portal.
Semporna, a water village on Sabah’s east coast is known as the launchpad to world dive site, Sipadan and home to a large sea gypsy population whom Malaysian authorities have long been hard-pressed to keep track of.
It hit the headlines earlier this year when a group of Filipino Muslim rebels invaded the town, among several areas in Sabah, in a bid to reclaim the state as their clan’s ancestral territory.
Despite being firmly rooted on Malaysian soil, Mohd Azman described to the five-man RCI panel that he and his men had felt as if they had left their home country behind and were in the Philippines as the bulk of the villagers hailed from there, the Malaysiakini news portal also reported.
The investigating team was formed last October 1 to check claims of Malaysian identity cards (ICs) being issued to illegal immigrants, which had led to an abnormal spike in Sabah’s population, where foreigners comprise nearly 30 per cent of the state’s 3.12 million-strong populace.
According to The Malaysian Insider, Mohd Azman told the RCI panel that syndicates issuing fake ICs were still active.
He was reported to have visited several squatter colonies and refugee settlements in Kota Kinabalu, Tawau and Sandakan where his team had received and verified police reports and complaints from the public.
Mohd Azman said the team completed its investigations on September 4 after interviewing and recording statements from a total of 361 people, comprising 123 civil servants, 12 former detainees under the Internal Security Act, four writers, 12 politicians and 210 other individuals who included Filipinos, Pakistanis, Indians and Indonesians.
He said the information compiled would be handed over to either the Home Ministry or the Commercial Crimes Division for further action.
He also said his team’s findings had been passed on to the Eastern Sabah Security Command, set up earlier this year following the Filipino invasion.
The RCI, which kicked off in January, concluded today and its chairman, former Chief Judge of Sabah and Sarawak, Tan Sri Steve Shim, said the panel hoped to wrap up its findings by December.
A total of 211 people were called to testify, including former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and his one-time deputy-turned-opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.
