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RCI report on Wang Kelian to be presented to Cabinet next week

PUTRAJAYA: The Home Ministry will present a report by the Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) on the Wang Kelian human trafficking incident to the Cabinet next week.

In saying this, its minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said the commission which concluded their inquiry over the matter, had also presented the report to the Yang di-Pertuan Agong, Al-Sultan Abdullah Ri'ayatuddin Al-Mustafa Billah Shah.

"The RCI has completed their report and it has already been presented to the Agong.

"The ministry will present the report to the Cabinet next week and if the Cabinet agrees, we will allow the report to be made public," he said after attending the ministry's monthly assembly today.

The RCI was set up to look into the March 2015 discovery of illegal immigrants' transit camps and 147 mass graves in Wang Kelian.

All in, the skeletal remains of 130 people, believed to be victims of a human trafficking syndicate, were found buried in the hills of Wang Kelian, Perlis.

The tragedy which involved victims from the ethnic Rohingya community of Myanmar and Bangladesh attracted the attention of the international community.

The RCI panel is led by former chief justice Tun Ariffin Zakaria, with former inspector-general of police Tan Sri Norian Mai as deputy.

Meanwhile on the special taskforce to probe the alleged "enforced disappearance" of Pastor Raymond Koh and activist Amri Che Mat, a time extension had been requested to conclude the report and submit it to the ministry.

"I was informed that they need slightly more time. I think they requested for a month or so. The chairman of the committee had requested the ministry to allow this and we agreed.

"I hope after the one month extension, they will be able to finish the draft of the report to be submitted to the ministry," he added.

Muhyiddin announced the establishment of the special task force and its six-member team, led by former High Court judge Datuk Abd Rahim Uda in June last year.

This was after Suhakam concluded in its findings that Bukit Aman’s Special Branch was likely behind the disappearances of Koh and Amri.

In 2016, Amri, the co-founder of the Perlis Hope non-governmental organisation (NGO), went out in his vehicle from his home in Kangar, Perlis at about 11.30pm. His vehicle was later found at a construction site in the early hours of the following day.

Koh went missing in 2017 after he was abducted by a group of men while on his way to a friend’s house in Petaling Jaya.

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