No truth to claims by deportees, says official

Written by changthai11 on Tuesday, October 7th, 2008

No truth to claims by deportees, says official

Muguntan Vanar
The Star

Sabah has dismissed claims by certain returning Filipino deportees that Malaysian authorities had beaten them during the Ops Bersepadu crackdown against illegal immigrants.

Ops Bersepadu director of operations Sukarti Wakiman said there was “not a single ounce of truth” in the allegations reported by Manila-based foreign news agencies.

“We have not received any complaints or negative reports about ill-treatment of deportees.

“There is no truth to such claims,” said Sukarti, who is also the State Secretary in charge of coordinating the multi-enforcement agency action on illegals in the state.

An AFP news report quoting officials of a fact-finding committee on Filipino deportees from Sabah claimed that expelled Filipinos had been severely beaten by Malaysian police while under detention.

Sukarti stressed that the standing order in the operation to flush out illegal immigrants from the state was that screening of all detainees or foreigners must be done according to the set procedures and in accordance to human rights requirements.

The report claiming that they were treated badly or abused by Malaysian authorities was not true, he said, adding that, so far, no report of such abuse or ill-treatment of detainees had been received since the operation was launched on Aug 7.

Sukarti, who was baffled by the allegations, said that if cases of ill-treatment had occurred, they would have been immediately detected.

He also said that there was no basis for the state government to investigate such claims but assured that if there were specific allegations of abuse and ill-treatment, a full investigation would be carried out.