PUTRAJAYA, April 25 — A police officer has admitted to lodging a false report on the arrest of five illegal immigrants in investigations following the discovery of human trafficking camps and makeshift graves in Wang Kelian, a Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) heard today.

Inspector Husyairi Musa, who was then chief investigator at the Padang Besar Criminal Investigations Department (CID), told the inquiry how Padang Besar district police chief Supt Rizani Che Ismail ordered him to draft a report as though he was the one who had made the arrests on March 13, 2015.

He explained to the inquiry’s Conducting Officers, Khairul Anuar Abd Halim and Saiful Hazmi Mohd Saad, how he had received a call from Rizani on that day, ordering him to head to the Perlis National Park to receive five people who were arrested from Special Branch (SB) officers.

However, he was later ordered by Rizani to file the report with it stating him as the officer who made the arrests.

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Mohd Husyairi, the inquiry’s 18th witness, said he then drafted the said report after surrendering the five suspects to the then Padang Besar district CID chief Assistant Superintendent Junaidy Md Saad for further investigations.

The exact report was then presented and read out during the inquiry, to which the inconsistencies were scrutinised by panel members, former Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Norian Mai and former chief prosecutor Datuk Noorbahari Baharuddin.

Noorbahari: Something is not right, you said they handed the five over, but the report says you came across them acting suspiciously, and you told us you got instructions from who?

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Husyairi: Supt Rizano.

Norian: Now in the report you said you came across, but you said it was on instructions of the district chief to make arrests, so that is a false report, we can charge you, you know. Why say came across, we would accept if you said it you were handed the suspects. Which is right; (you were) ordered?

Husyairi: I was ordered by the district chief to collect the five arrested people

Norian: Which means the report is not true?

Husyairi: Yes.

Earlier in the day, the inquiry also heard the testimony of the 17th witness Inspector Mohamad Afiq Sarmid, a member of the VAT69 Commando, who was part of the raiding team that actually arrested the five illegal foreigners.

Mohamad Afiq, who was the Troop 8 commander in 2015, had explained that his team comprising of 24 commandos split into four squads and entered the hills near the Perlis National Park near Genting Perah.

“We were briefed to enter the area to assist the SB (Special Branch) by verifying the existence of human trafficking settlements,” he told the inquiry.

He said once there, they found at least 14 bare camp structures over two days of scouring the area and made the arrest of the five people towards the end of the operations.

The names of those arrested were read out during the inquiry, and were identified as two Thai nationals, Pau Wong Chunpo, 44, and 21-year-old Suryan, and three Myanmar nationals, Yahya,15, Shahidullah, 16, and Momotin, 17.

Among the items seized from the five people were a Smith & Wesson pistol, an empty gun magazine, 12 various types of bullets, a machete and cash, RM410 and 100 Thai Baht.

Today is the sixth day of public hearings for the RCI chaired by former Chief Justice Tun Arifin Zakaria and assisted by Norian, along with six others.