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BENARNEWS- Malaysia slashed the cost of a China-backed rail construction project by about a third through a "more equitable" renegotiation with Beijing and avoided a potential cancelation penalty of U.S. $5 billion, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad told reporters on Monday.
Under the newly renegotiated East Coast Rail Link (ECRL) signed with China on April 12, the project's cost will be cut to 44 billion ringgit ($11 billion) from 65.5 billion ringgit ($16 billion) from the original agreement signed by Malaysia's previous government in 2017, Mahathir said.
Among other economic benefits, his government won a larger share of jobs for Malaysians who would be working on the infrastructure project, the prime minister said.
"The PH government was faced with the choice to either renegotiate or pay termination costs of about 21.78 billion ringgit ($5 billion), with nothing to show for it," Mahathir said during a news conference, referring to the Pakatan Harapan coalition government he leads.
"As such, we chose to go back to the negotiation table and call for a more equitable deal, whereby the needs of Malaysian people would be prioritized."
Signing the deal in August 2017, then-Prime Minister Najib Razak, hailed the 688-km (427-mile) project spanning the states of Selangor, Pahang, Terengganu and Kelantan, as a game changer for Malaysia, stating it was to be completed in 2024.
"It was an unjustified, hefty lump sum price which lacked clarity in terms of technical specifications, price and, by extension, economic justification," Mahathir said of the deal signed by his predecessor.
Mahathir said the ECRL project's completion date had been extended to Dec.31, 2026. Construction, halted in July 2018, should resume soon.
"As you know, part of the work is already been done. We will continue with that work. As far as payment is concerned we will pay according to the progress of the construction," Mahathir told reporters.
Mahathir said the project's main contractor, China Communications Construction Co Ltd (CCCC) would refund the Malaysian government 1 billion ringgit ($243 million) within a month. The refund is a portion of the 3.1 billion ringgit (U.S $750 million) advance payment for Phase 2 of the ECRL project.
"The balance will be settled within three months after deductions for verified claims due to abortive works, suspension and cancellation of the northern extension," Mahathir said.
In Beijing on Friday, a Chinese government official praised the negotiations.
"The governments of Malaysia and China as well as the companies involved have been in close communication for the relevant project," Foreign Ministry Spokesman Lu Kang said. "We are glad that after friendly consultations, the two sides have reached a solution. We hope the construction of the project can be resumed at an early date for more win-win outcomes.
"[T]he governments and businesses of China and Malaysia have reached relevant consensus and signed an agreement in the spirit of mutual respect and equal-footed negotiation, which is conducive to both sides," Kang said in response to a follow-on question about ECRL.

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A journalist reads a handout on the East Coast Rail Link project distributed at a press conference in Putrajaya, Malaysia. April 15, 2019. [S. Mahfuz/BenarNews]

Rail link shortened
Under the new deal, the ECRL has been shortened to 648 km (402), leading to some of the cost saving.
One of the sections cut was at the request of the government in Selangor state, because the original route passed through an area it seeks to have declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Finance Minister Guan Eng said.
The Gombak Selangor Quartz Ridge is built entirely of quartz formed about 200 million years ago. The most spectacular part of the quartz ridge is its protruding mid-section, which encompasses Taman Melawati, National Zoo in the Ampang Jaya area and part of Selayang Municipal Area, according to UNESCO.
"If the rail link were allowed to go ahead, the UNESCO application would fail because natural heritage sites cannot include new infrastructure work that damages the site," he told BenarNews during a question and answer session at the Malaysian embassy in Washington on Saturday.
Other benefits
Along with seeing a reduction in the project's cost, Mahathir said the country should see other economic benefits as well. He announced that construction jobs for local workers would increase from the 30 percent agreed to in the original contract to 40 percent.
Mahathir also announced that while last week's agreement was explicitly for the ECRL, he expected to reach a deal to sell palm oil to China.
Malaysian economist Jalilah Baba told BenarNews that the government did well in renegotiating the agreement on the rail project.
"It is a good outcome. Having been able to cut the cost is obviously a great move for the government. Furthermore, the project is not badly affected and is still going to go on," he said.
"It will also have a good impact on our financial stability and we do not owe much to the Chinese government, meaning we do not pay high interest because we did not take a huge loan." she said.
Writing in Forbes magazine, economics professor Panos Mourdoukoutas praised Mahathir for saving Malaysia from a debt trap with China.
"The new deal is a big win for Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad. He made good on his election campaign promise to renegotiate China's investments in the country, which served the interests of Beijing more than they served the interests of Kuala Lumpur," Mourdoukoutas said.
China's concerns
Economist Barjoyai Bardai of National University of Malaysia also rated the renegotiation as a success, saying that both countries wanted to continue with the ECRL.
"China wants the project because it is part of their One Belt, One Road (OBOR) project and Malaysia wants to protect its diplomatic relationship and trade with China," he said.
Meanwhile, a Chinese policy expert told the New York Times that China made the deal because its OBOR efforts to link Beijing with the rest of Asia, as well as Europe and Africa by building massive highways, railways, ports and other infrastructure was hurting its reputation.
"We're in a period of China making tactical adjustments based on a deeply unpopular reputation," Jude Blanchette told the New York Times.
"This accommodation was made in context of China recognizing that the Belt and Road Initiative is less popular than China wished it was," said Blanchette, a senior adviser at Crumpton Group, which describes itself as a strategic international advisory and business development firm.


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BENARNEWS- A Malaysian judge on Wednesday ordered a witness to produce evidence that could potentially expose details of fugitive financier Jho Low's role in the massive 1MDB financial scandal.
The ruling came during the fourth day of former Prime Minister Najib Razak's landmark corruption trial on seven charges related to the transfer of 42 million ringgit (U.S. $10.3 million) from SRC International, a former subsidiary of the beleaguered state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).
Jho Low, whose real name is Low Taek Jho, has been linked to Najib and faces his own charges related to the multibillion-dollar scandal.
Judge Nazlan Ghazali of the Kuala Lumpur High Court issued the order during a debate between prosecution and defense attorneys who argued over the admissibility as evidence of Ambank banker Joanna Yu's Blackberry phone, along with communication transcripts kept by Bank Negara, the nation's central bank.
"I find that the documents relating to the communications between Joanna Yu and Jho Low is relevant to the trial," the judge said.
He ordered witness Ahmad Farhan Sharifuddin, a manager at Bank Negara, to produce the evidence during an upcoming court session.
Yu, who worked as Ambank's relationship manager, handled the accounts of 1MDB, SRC and Najib's personal account, according to a 2015 Wall Street Journal report.
During cross-examination, Ahmad Farhan told defense attorney Harvinderjit Singh about the items. The attorney then asked him to bring them to court, drawing an objection from the prosecution team.
Lead defense attorney Shafee Abdullah asked the judge to allow the items to be presented.
"In her draft witness statement, Yu said she communicated with Low," Shafee told the court, pointing out the relevancy of the seized Bank Negara items.
Prosecutors challenged the request, describing it as irrelevant.
"What they are doing is a fishing expedition," prosecutor V. Sithambaram told the court. "If they keep asking for documents to check whether they are relevant or admissible, this is set to be a long trial."
The defense team countered by claiming that prosecutors were trying to block Najib from having a fair trial.
"What dark ages are we living in where the accused is not allowed to access evidence that might be useful for his defense?" Harvinderjit said.

In his opening statement earlier this month, Attorney General Tommy Thomas said evidence would show that Najib used his office as prime minister and finance minister to obtain the money.
Najib's trial opened on April 3, nearly 11 months after his ruling Barisan Nasional coalition was swept by the opposition Pakatan Harapan (PH) alliance in the May 2018 general election.
The 1MDB scandal, in which the U.S. Department of Justice said about $4.5 billion were misappropriated, brought about Najib's fall and the rise of PH, which campaigned on a platform of cleaning up corruption in government.
The trial on three counts of criminal breach of trust, three counts of money laundering and one count of power tied to the transfer of SRC International funds, is the first of what could be several for Najib who faces a total of 42 criminal charges linked to the 1MDB scandal. He could face decades in prison and fines totaling millions of dollars if convicted of all charges.


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BENARNEWS- A Malaysian police commander testified Thursday that he was ordered to stay away from a human trafficking camp and mass graves of Rohingya and Bangladeshis found near the Thai border in January 2015 after he sent a report about the discovery.
Now retired Deputy Superintendent Sivanganam (alias Thirumugan Sathisivam), was ground commander for the Malaysian police's General Operations Force (GOF) in the region when the camp in the jungle outside Wang Kelian was discovered on Jan. 19, 2015.
For reasons that remain unclear, police only publicized the discovery of the camp more than three months later, days after news of the grim discovery of mass graves at a similar trafficking camp on the Thai side of the border made international headlines.
"I was forbidden from returning to that area and when the unit was redeployed, I was ordered to sit out," said Sivanganam while testifying before a Royal Commission of Inquiry on the second day of its first hearings and investigation into the circumstances that led to 106 corpses being unearthed from the Wang Kelian camp in May 2015.
The RCI, formed by Malaysia's new government in early March and given six months to file a report, is scheduled to hear testimony from a district police chief and special branch officer when the hearing resumes on April 22, but members did not say if additional hearings would be scheduled.
Weeks after the RCI's formation, the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia and legal activist group Fortify Rights questioned why authorities waited so long to allow the removal of the corpses found in the jungle. The groups released a joint 121-page report, "Sold Like Fish," based on their own multi-year investigation and more than 270 interviews, which alleged that the delay hindered a proper investigation.
'Undocumented foreign migrants'
At the time of the discovery of the camp outside of Wang Kelian in northern Perlis state, authorities detained 38 men whom they suspected of being "undocumented foreign migrants" but were not linked to human traffickers.
When the public finally learned about the camps and graves in May 2015, reports at the time said the camps contained pens likely used as cages to house the trafficking victims, including Rohingya and Bangladeshis.
Days earlier in the same month, Thai officials announced that similar graves were found at an abandoned camp in the jungle on their side of Thailand's frontier with Malaysia. Since then, the Thai government tried 102 individuals and convicted 62, including a former three-star general.
In Malaysia, authorities under the previous government arrested 12 police officers and several foreign nationals in connection with the Wang Kelian case. However in 2017, then-Home Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi told reporters that the officers had been released from custody due to lack of evidence. Four foreigners – two Myanmar nationals, a Bangladeshi and a Thai – were convicted on human trafficking charges and remain jailed.
During the first day of hearings on Wednesday, RCI members were told about how personnel found the campsite by following human tracks and a soapy stream, which led them to a river and a campsite with wooden fixtures resembling guard towers and a shop.
"I also saw a man, believed to be a Thai, inside one of the towers. At this time, I didn't see any of the illegal immigrants. But I heard noises from a generator ... I think they were producing drugs at the camp," GOF member Cpl. Mat Ten testified, according to the New Straits Times.
Report details
In his testimony on Thursday, Sivanganam said he sent a report to officials on Jan. 22, 2015, that included a tip received from a local source, who claimed that a human trafficking syndicate had approached him and others to help transport victims from the Wang Kelian area.
The source, according to Sivanganam's report, had indicated that a local trader called "Aziz" or "Azim" served as a middle man to assist with local authorities in the area.
"I can only identify Aziz as the middle man. But I did not check anything else," Sivanganam testified. "I then channeled all the information to the Northern Brigade, Perlis Police chief, Northern Border Intelligence Unit and National Security Council in an incident report on Jan.22, 2015."
He said he also passed the report to the Malaysia Human Rights Commission (Suhakam).
Sivanganam, who retired from the GOF a few months after the operation, testified that the March 2015 redeployment was similar to routine duties he had carried out beginning in 2009. The GOF serves as a light infantry arm of the Royal Malaysia Police.
Asked if he questioned his superior about being pulled from duty, he responded, "We just follow orders."
Campsite destroyed
In addition, Sivanganam said he had participated in destroying the campsite on Jan. 20, 2015. That order was given by the state deputy police chief to his B Company commander, Joeking M. Marian Anthony. The discovery of about 30 graves forced troops to stop the destruction.
"I immediately directed my team to stop. We lodged a report of the incident at IPD Padang Besar on Jan. 22. We left the graves for the IPK (state police), IPD and forensics to handle," he told investigators.
Joeking, who testified ahead of Sivanganam, said he was ordered to get rid of photos of the camp a couple of months after he participated in its destruction.
"There was a time between March and April 2015 where I received instructions from the commanding officer ordering anyone within the team to destroy photos in their possession related to Wang Kelian," Joeking said, adding the officer "asked for the photos to be stored only at the battalion office."


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BENARNEWS- A change of governments last year dramatically improved the journalism climate in Malaysia, which stood out as a bright spot in the Asia-Pacific, watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said Thursday in releasing its worldwide press freedom rankings for 2019.
The Paris-based group also criticized Thailand's military government for "a very indulgent manner towards certain regimes," alleging that Vietnam and China were allowed to extradite exiled dissident journalists and bloggers who were nationals of those countries hiding out on Thai soil.
Elsewhere in the region, press freedom continued to erode in Bangladesh and the Philippines in 2018, RSF reported.
"With totalitarian propaganda, censorship, intimidation, physical violence and cyber-harassment, a lot of courage is needed nowadays to work independently as a journalist in the Asia-Pacific countries, where democracies are struggling to resist various forms of disinformation," RSF said in publishing its latest annual World Press Freedom Index rankings.
The report pointed to last year's political transition in Malaysia as an example of the degree to which "a country's political ecosystem impacts the freedom to reform."
Freedom for reporting improved so much in Malaysia in 2018, in the wake of the electoral defeat of a ruling party that had governed the country since its founding in 1957, that Malaysia jumped 22 places on the index to rank as No. 123 out of 180 surveyed countries.
On this year's index, Turkmenistan finished dead last – right behind North Korea for the worst record for press freedom. Norway ranked No. 1 for the third straight year.
In Malaysia, the May 2018 ouster of the United Malays National Organization party, which anchored the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition, "blew fresh air through the ossified media and transformed the environment for journalists, propelling Malaysia to 123rd place," Reporters Without Borders said.
"Journalists and media outlets that had been blacklisted, such as the cartoonist Zunar and the Sarawak Report investigative news website, have been able to resume working without fear of harassment," RSF said, alluding to the case of satirical cartoonist Zunar, a BenarNews contributor whose real name is Zulkiflee Anwar Ulhaque.
The previous government had targeted him on multiple charges of sedition for sketches that lampooned then-Prime Minister Najib Razak. The charges were dropped after the new government took over.
"The general environment for journalists is much more relaxed, self-censorship has declined dramatically and the print media are now offering a fuller and more balanced range of viewpoints ...," RSF reported.
However, it noted its concern that the new government of Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad could still draw on an arsenal of draconian laws, including the 1948 Sedition Act and the 1972 Official Secrets Act, to suppress media in the country.
The Thai press under junta rule
In neighboring Thailand, which rose four notches in the rankings to No. 136, the country ruled by a junta since May 2015 remained unfriendly to journalists, the RSF report said. The section on Thailand did not explain what accounted for the country's four-point increase on the index, which reflected a relative improvement in the climate for press freedom.
"This ubiquitous and all-powerful junta has constantly hounded outspoken journalists, summoning them for questioning, detaining them arbitrarily and driving at least ten of them to flee the country. Any criticism of the junta is liable to lead to violent reprisals made possible by draconian legislation and a justice system that follows orders. The long-promised elections held in March 2019 made no difference," RSF said.
Without naming him the report's section on Thailand touched apparently on the case of Truong Duy Nhat, a Vietnamese blogger working for Radio Free Asia (RFA), which is affiliated with BenarNews, who disappeared in Bangkok in January 2019. Last month, Nhat's daughter confirmed to RFA's Vietnamese Service that he had been brought back to his home country and put in jail.
"The authorities ... behave in a very indulgent manner towards certain regimes: Chinese and Vietnamese operatives have been allowed to arrest dissident exile journalists or bloggers from their country in order to 'repatriate' and then jail them," RSF said.
Philippines, Indonesia and Bangladesh
In the Philippines, which dropped one place in the rankings to No. 134, RSF highlighted what it described as the government's "judicial harassment campaign" against Maria Ressa, the chief of the Rappler news website that has consistently done critical reporting about a deadly drug war carried out by the Duterte administration.
Indonesia, meanwhile, held steady with a No. 124 index ranking. The reported faulted President Joko Widodo for not keeping campaign promises related to media freedom from when he was first elected in 2014. Joko just claimed victory in his bid for re-election this week.
"His presidency was marked by serious media freedom violations, including drastic restrictions on media access to West Papua (the Indonesian half of the island of New Guinea), where violence against local journalists keeps on growing," the report said, referring to the insurgency-stricken far eastern Indonesian region of Papua.
And in Bangladesh, the climate for journalists grew more hostile under the rule of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her Awami League party, the watchdog reported.
In 2018, her government's "latest weapon" against journalists was a digital security law enacted in October, under which "negative propaganda" is punishable by up to 14 years in prison, RSF said, citing the case of the arrest of photojournalist Shahidul Alam, who was jailed for 107 days without charge before being released on bail in November 2018.
Bangladesh dropped four places in the index, to the No. 150 ranking.
"Bangladeshi journalists have been among the leading collateral victims of the tough methods adopted by the ruling Awami League and its boss, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina," the report said.
"The campaign leading up to her reelection in late 2018 was accompanied by a disturbing increase in press freedom violations, including violence by political activists against reporters in the field, the arbitrary blocking of news websites, and arbitrary arrests of journalists."


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BENARNEWS- Malaysia will push through with a multibillion-dollar property project that was shelved two years ago and it will be built by the original contractors, including a Chinese-owned company, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said Friday, just days before a scheduled trip to Beijing.
Mahathir said members of his cabinet had decided on Wednesday to reinstate Bandar Malaysia, a 486-acre (197-hectare) mixed-use project in Kuala Lumpur that was expected to cost 140 billion ringgit (U.S. $33.8 billion).
"After due deliberations, the government has decided to reinstate Bandar Malaysia," Mahathir told reporters.
The project would include 10,000 low-cost homes and a people's park. It was originally envisioned to house the main terminal for the Kuala Lumpur-Singapore high-speed rail line, which was among infrastructure deals canceled by Mahathir's government last year, after it defeated the government of Najib Razak in the May 2018 general election.
Mahathir made the announcement just days after his government resumed construction of the China-backed East Coast Rail Link (ECRL) project after the contractor agreed to slash its cost by about one-third to 44 billion ringgit (U.S. $11 billion).
He justified Bandar Malaysia's revival by pointing out in a statement that it would significantly boost foreign investments and tighten economic ties with Beijing, as he cited the newly renegotiated ECRL, which was signed with China on April 12.
"These two major projects will also be a significant contribution to the Belt and Road Initiative which Malaysia expects to be able to tap on," Mahathir said, referring to China's massive One Belt, One Road (OBOR) initiative to finance and build infrastructure projects around the globe.
"It will draw major international financial institutions, multinational corporations," he said, naming Chinese tech giants such as Alibaba and Huawei as among those that showed interest to establish offices in Bandar Malaysia.
Mahathir is expected to meet Chinese leader Xi Jinping during the second OBOR forum in Beijing next week. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said the forum would gather 37 heads of state and government.
Najib Razak, the nation's former leader who first approved the Bandar Malaysia deal back in 2011, ridiculed Mahathir's announcement over its revival.
"So does this mean that the country has been sold off? Has the project been swindled? Bowed to China?" Najib posted on his Facebook page.
"They did say all these to the previous government," he said, referring to past criticism of his government's deals with China that was leveled by Mahathir's Pakatan Harapan coalition. "Now we can ask them back the same thing."


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BENARNEWS- A Singapore man pleaded not guilty Thursday to pollution charges related to a toxic chemical dump that sickened more than 2,700 people and shut down dozens of schools in Johor state last month.
Sim Wei Der entered the plea in Johor Bahru Sessions Court and was freed on 250,000 ringgit (U.S. $60,000) bail, officials said.
Sim, who is scheduled to return to court on May 23, could be sentenced up to five years in jail and a maximum fine of 500,000 ringgit ($120,000), if he is found guilty on two charges under the Environmental Quality Act of 1974.
Another Singaporean and two Malaysians were charged previously with similar offenses.
Johor Deputy Police Chief Mohd Kamarudin Md Din said Sim, who is a director of a used tire processing company, surrendered to the Malaysian authorities on Wednesday at police headquarters in Pasir Gudang.
"The 49-year-old Singapore man was arrested," Mohd Kamarudin said. "He was subsequently detained at the police lockup facility in Seri Alam."
Sim and the others allegedly disposed oily sludge into the Sungai Kim Kim River on March 7 without written permission from the director-general of the Department of Environment, according to the charge sheet filed Thursday.
Their action resulted in a chemical disaster around the town of Pasir Gudang, causing 111 schools to close and more than 2,700 people to seek medical treatment after being exposed to toxic fumes, prosecutors said.
Benzene, toluene, xylene, ethylbenzene and d-limonene were found in samples taken from the river, the Department of Environment said.
The World Health Organization reported such solvents are suspected carcinogens and could cause anemia and reduce white blood cells, according to the American Oil & Gas Reporter magazine.
Yeo Bee Yin, minister of environment, science, technology and climate change, said 6.4 million ringgit ($1.5 million) had been spent cleaning a 1.5-km (1-mile) section of the river around the disposal site.
"The 6.4-million ringgit was just for cleaning and does not include the cost for personnel and others," she told reporters last month.
State petroleum company Petronas and the military sent machinery and experts to help clean the river, which was declared safe on April 19, officials said.
Singapore concerns
Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong raised concerns about the polluted water during a retreat in Putrajaya with Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad on April 9.
Lee asked about the cleanliness of rivers, including the Johor River, which serves as a water supply to his nation.
Under a water deal signed in 1962, Malaysia sells Singapore water from the Johor River at less than one U.S. penny per 1,000 gallons, the South China Morning Post reported in September 2018. The report noted that 60 percent of Singapore's water needs are supplied under the agreement.
"If the Johor River experiences the same occurrence as in Sungai Kim Kim the other day, its impact would be catastrophic for both countries," Lee said during the retreat.


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BENARNEWS- A U.S. Defense Department official on Friday questioned China's motive in agreeing to form a code of conduct for the South China Sea, as he urged a Southeast Asian bloc of nations to continue pursuing a legally binding code that would govern actions by claimants in the disputed region.
Randall Schriver, U.S. assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific security affairs, told a news conference in Kuala Lumpur that Washington would encourage the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to aim for a code of conduct (COC) that would be "consistent with existing international laws and norms."
"We do have some suspicion about China's motive," Schriver told reporters prior to his meeting with Malaysian Deputy Defense Minister Liew Chin Tong and other security officials.
"The way they behave suggests that they are not participant in upholding international law consistently," Schriver said, referring to Beijing. "So we would have suspicion in terms of what they seek in the code of conduct."
Apart from China and Taiwan, the Philippines and fellow ASEAN countries Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam have overlapping claims in the South China Sea.
Claimant states other than China have been pushing for a legally binding code, which would spell out steps that each nation could take to avoid disputes that could spiral out of control. Some countries want the code to be binding and subject to ratification by signatory states.
China agreed in August 2018 to a draft that would eventually serve as its basis.
Schriver said that despite Washington's suspicion over Beijing's motive in participating in discussions, the United States believes that COC could be a mechanism to enhance safety in the disputed region.
The United States was not involved in drafting the code, he said.
Washington has frequently sent warships near some Chinese-occupied features in the South China Sea, where an estimated $5 trillion worth of global trade passes annually. Beijing has built military installations atop seven man-made islands it occupies in the oil-rich region.
Schriver issued his comments two days after Beijing displayed its first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, during a naval review off the coast of northern port city of Qingdao. More than 30 Chinese boats, submarines, frigates and almost 40 warplanes took part in the event, reports said.
The review, which marked the Chinese navy's 70th anniversary, was part of a major public relations drive by its military amid rising concerns over its activities in South China Sea, according to the Associated Press.
More than a dozen foreign countries also sent warships in the display of firepower, including Thailand, Australia, Japan and Russia, according to China's state-run news agency Xinhua. The United States did not send a ship.
In his speech after Wednesday's naval parade, China's navy chief Shen Jinlong took a dig at Washington and its allies, saying freedom of navigation should not be used to infringe upon the rights of other countries.
"Respect for the rules is the cornerstone of maritime good order," Reuters news agency quoted Shen as saying, as he underscored that China was continuing to advance talks with Southeast Asian states on the code of conduct.


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BENARNEWS- A Malaysian judge on Monday rejected a bid by former Prime Minister Najib Razak to have seven corruption charges against him dropped in his trial linked to the alleged theft of billions from the 1MDB state fund.
Judge Nazlan Ghazali ruled that the charges against Najib would stand. He dismissed the former leader's claims that the accusations were defective as they lacked clarity and were structured to mislead in such a way that he could not put up a proper defense.
"I hereby find the argument that the charges are defective is unsustainable," Nazlan said.
Najib's current trial, which started on April 3, focuses on seven of the total 42 charges against him related to his role in the scandal surrounding 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), the sovereign wealth fund he started in 2009 during his dual role then as prime minister and finance minister. He has pleaded not guilty to the seven charges, which include money laundering and criminal breach of trust.
Najib's lawyers did not indicate whether they would appeal the ruling.
The seven charges specifically revolve around allegations that 42 million ringgit ($10.3 million) were illegally funneled electronically into Najib's private bank accounts from SRC International, a former 1MDB subsidiary.
The 1MDB scandal led to the fall of Najib's government and the rise of the then opposition alliance Pakatan Harapan, which campaigned last year on a platform of cleaning up corruption. Najib's former mentor-turned-nemesis, Mahathir Mohamad, led Pakatan to victory in the May 2018 general election and took over as prime minister.
U.S. prosecutors contend that $4.5 billion (18.3 billion ringgit) was diverted from 1MDB into the bank accounts of Najib, his friends and family, in what they described as "kleptocracy at its worst."
Najib's attorneys had earlier argued that the seven charges against him lacked merit and should either be dropped or modified.
Aside from the seven charges in the SRC International case, Najib is facing another 35 charges for crimes he allegedly committed as head of the 1MDB, which he founded in 2009 ostensibly to boost the nation's economy through strategic investments. Those cases had been calendared for hearings from May until June this year.


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BENARNEWS- Malaysian authorities on Tuesday destroyed around four metric tons of seized elephant tusks and ivory products thought to have been destined for China, Hong Kong and Vietnam, in trying to stop the illegal wildlife trade via Malaysia, officials said.
The ivory pieces with an estimated total value of 13.3 million ringgit (U.S. $3.2 million) were items of contraband confiscated at Malaysian ports and airports from 2011 to 2017, said Xavier Jayakumar, minister for Water, Land and Natural Resources.
"We will incinerate these case exhibits, the proscribed method for such cases, to ensure the exhibits stay off the black market," he told reporters at a government-run waste disposal and management facility in Negeri Sembilan state, about an hour's drive from the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur.
"These were seizures from 15 cases and from the total, 3,692.4 kg were complete and incomplete tusks while the remaining 228.89 kg were incomplete ivory products," he added.
Authorities believe the contraband was being smuggled from Africa to China, Hong Kong and Vietnam when they intercepted the various shipments at the Malaysian ports, Xavier said.
"It's quite hard to find the syndicate involved in the cases because the suspects arrested are usually not syndicate members but those involved in the shipment of the contraband," he said. "Therefore, a special team was formed to investigate and identify the syndicates involved in the cases."
Since 1978, Malaysia has been a signatory to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, or CITES, Xavier said, adding that the country was committed "to this international responsibility to curb illegal ivory trading."
Apart from working to combat the illegal trade in elephant tusks, Malaysia last August seized 50 rhinoceros horns bound for Vietnam. Their estimated value was almost U.S. $12 million.
And in February this year, authorities in the Malaysian Borneo state of Sabah made a record haul when they seized 30 metric tons (66,139 pounds) in pangolin parts and products, according to Traffic, a Britain-based wildlife trafficking monitoring group.
Regional hub
Malaysia's proximity to the world's major ivory consumers, China and Thailand, as well as its efficient and well-developed port network, are factors behind why the country is used as a Southeast Asian transit hub for ivory smuggling, Traffic reported.
The NGO would like to see Malaysia implement a National Ivory Action Plan (NIAP) to fight the problem, said Kanitha Krishnasamy, Traffic's regional director.
Traffic has also urged Malaysia to intensify its collaboration and communication with ivory source and consumer countries.
"Collaborative action, including risk profiling and targeting, as well as timely communication between source and consumer countries have already resulted in a number of successful seizures globally, and indeed forms part of Malaysia's National Ivory Action Plan that was submitted to CITES pursuant to the recommendations of the CITES Standing Committee," Krishnasamy told BenarNews.
"Such measures must continue, conducted in tandem with other essential actions, without which Malaysia will continue to be a prominent player in the illegal ivory trade."


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BENARNEWS- Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said Wednesday he had sent a letter for the king's signature to appoint Abdul Hamid Bador as Malaysia's new police chief to succeed Mohamad Fuzi Harun, who is set to retire on May 4.
Abdul Hamid, the current deputy inspector-general of police (IGP), appears poised to lead the national police department three years after the previous government ousted him from the force. He was removed after speaking out against the 1MDB corruption scandal, which overshadowed then-Prime Minister Najib Razak and led to his and his party's downfall last year.
"Yes, I think Abdul Hamid is the new IGP," Mahathir said in confirming that he had submitted the senior policeman's name to the king for his consent as required.
"I think that the Yang di-Pertuan Agong (the king) has signed the appointment letter," the prime minister told reporters during federal-level Labor Day celebrations at the Putrajaya International Convention Center.
Once the king signs, Abdul Hamid, who turns 61 this year, will take over from Fuzi as IGP. Fuzi is retiring effective Saturday, his 60th birthday and the mandatory retirement age for police.
Mahathir announced that Abdul Hamid, who already has reached retirement age, would have a special contract to hold the post. The IGP is considered a political position appointed by the prime minister or government leaders, and requires the king's consent. Najib appointed Fuzi as police chief in September 2017.
Mahathir took office in May 2018 after his Pakatan Harapan opposition coalition pulled off an electoral upset over Najib's ruling Barisan Nasional bloc on a pledge of cleaning up government, among other campaign promises.
Abdul Hamid's post-electoral return to the federal police as head of the Special Branch was considered a break from tradition as no official announcement was made. The Special Branch is the intelligence arm of the Royal Malaysia Police.
In March, Abdul Hamid was appointed as acting deputy IGP following the retirement of Nor Rashid Ibrahim.
While heading the special branch, he was part of the 1MDB task force that oversaw several police raids and seizures of property connected to the scandal tied to the 1Malaysia Berhad Development state fund, including a superyacht that was owned by fugitive Malaysian financier Low Taek Jho (alias Jho Low). Mahathir's government recently sold the yacht and is seeking to capture and extradite Low back to Malaysia to face criminal charges connected to 1MDB.
U.S. prosecutors contend that $4.5 billion (18.3 billion ringgit) was diverted from 1MDB into the bank accounts of Najib, his friends and family, in what they described as "kleptocracy at its worst." Najib, who has denied any wrongdoing, is standing trial on seven corruption charges and faces a total of 42 criminal charges linked to 1MDB.

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Malaysian Police Inspector-General Mohamad Fuzi Harun listens to questions during a press conference in Kuala Lumpur, April 22, 2018. [AFP]

Other candidates
On Wednesday, the Straits Times reported that there had been ongoing discussions over who would succeed Fuzi because the Home Ministry and police had backed different candidates.
The Home Ministry supported Zulkifli Abdullah, director-general of the National Anti-Drugs Agency, while the police force backed Acryl Sani Abdullah Sani, head of the Internal Security and Public Order Department, sources told the Singapore-based newspaper. Both men are 58 – younger than the mandatory retirement age.
Zulkifli who took over as leader the anti-drugs agency following a directive from Mahathir in August 2018, had served as director of the federal police's Internal Security and Public Order Department.
Abdul Hamid's background
From 1998 to 2000, Abdul Hamid held the rank of superintendent and deputy district police chief at the Gombak police district headquarters.
He served as a negotiator in February and March 2013, when Malaysian security forces put down an insurrection in eastern Sabah state by about 200 fighters from Sulu – a neighboring province in the southern Philippines – who identified themselves as the Royal Army of Sulu and followers of the self-proclaimed Sultan of Sulu, Jamalul Kiram III.
In 2015, while serving as the deputy director of the Special Branch, he advised Najib's government to explain the 1MDB allegations clearly and for those involved to come forward.
After speaking out, he was transferred to the Prime Minister's Department in Najib's government in September 2015, but opted for early retirement. He returned to police work following Najib's departure from the top office last May.


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BENARNEWS- The final defendant charged with murdering the half-brother of North Korea's dictator in a chemical weapons attack at a Kuala Lumpur airport left prison and flew home to Vietnam on Friday evening, bringing to a close legal battles in the two-year-old case, her lawyer said.
Doan Thi Huong, a Vietnamese national who will turn 30 at the end of May, was released from Kajang prison near Kuala Lumpur on Friday morning, where she had been held since her arrest shortly after the assassination of Kim Jong Nam on Feb. 13, 2017.
"The case has come to an end," defense attorney Hisyam Teh Poh Teik told journalists, adding that the prosecution had filed no appeals over the Shah Alam High Court's decision last month to allow her to plead guilty to a lesser charge and serve out her sentence.
In a video taken by one of her lawyers on the plane just before it took off, Doan expressed thanks for all those who prayed for her, according to the Associated Press. "I want to say I love you all. I thank you my Lord Jesus. Thank you so much," she said in the video.
Later, after arriving in Hanoi, Huong said she was not sure what she wanted to do next, "but I think I want to become an actor." She also spoke about her time in custody, according to AP.
"What scared me the most when I was in prison was the loneliness and homesickness," she said. "My condition in the prison was good. They did not treat me badly."
Malaysian prosecutors and other government officials did not comment Friday on Doan's release.
Doan and Indonesian Siti Aisyah were charged with murdering the estranged sibling of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un by accosting Kim Jong Nam at the departure hall at Kuala Lumpur International Airport 2 (KLIA2) and smearing VX, an internationally banned nerve agent, on his face. He died moments later while being taken to a local hospital.
The prosecution case, which ran from October 2017 to June 2018, featured 34 witnesses and airport security footage showing two women approaching Kim Jong Nam and then heading to separate restrooms.
In a move that caught court observers by surprise, Attorney General Tommy Thomas in March announced that charges against Siti were being dropped. She walked out of prison and quickly boarded a private jet to return to Indonesia where she and her family met with President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo the next day.
Her co-defendant, Doan, remained in prison and on trial for Kim's murder. Doan, who required psychiatric evaluation at the Kuala Lumpur General Hospital following Siti's release, pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of causing injury through dangerous means and was cleared to be released after serving two-thirds of a three-year, four-month sentence.
Doan left the Kajang women's prison Friday morning in an unmarked silver van escorted by an immigration department vehicle and was taken to the immigration headquarters in Putrajaya before being transported to Kuala Lumpur International Airport. Court interpreter Maridam Yacfar told reporters waiting outside the prison that Doan was no longer inside.
"I can confirm that Doan was released at 7:15 a.m. She looked happy," Maridam said without offering additional comments before being taken to the Vietnamese embassy.
 
Letter read
Speaking to reporters at KLIA before flying to Hanoi on Friday night, Hisyam read a letter written by Doan thanking the Malaysian and Vietnamese governments, Judge Azmi Ariffin, Attorney General Tommy Thomas and the Vietnam Bar Federation.
"I thank so much for everybody who prayed for me in church and at home as well, thank you Lord Jesus for he loves me so much," Doan said in the letter written Thursday before her release. "I am very happy and thank you all a lot. I love you all."
She also thanked journalists for the support given to her.
"This means each and every one of you, she said a big thank you," Hisyam said while gesturing to those who had gathered to cover her departure.
Hisyam and Doan's other lawyers, Salim Bashir and Naran Singh, spoke to reporters at KLIA before boarding a 7:20 p.m. flight to accompany their client to Hanoi. She was not seen at the airport and the lawyers said she was taken directly to the plane.
Singh described Doan's release to BenarNews as the "closing of a book."
"We have been going back and forth to Hanoi ever since the start of the trial to discuss and report to the Vietnam Bar Federation, so this should be the last trip, closing the book," he said.
The bar federation, a non-government organization, paid for Doan's Malaysian lawyers to handle the case against her.
When asked if Doan might be facing danger in Vietnam because of her involvement, Naran said that he did not expect there to be any.
"To the four North Koreans who were involved, to them the job was done in 2017, so I don't see why they need to take any extra risks," Naran said.
Malaysian officials have said that the North Koreans who were believed to be suspects in Kim Jong Nam's killing left the country hours later.
Naran added that the North Korean government was on good terms with Vietnam, referring to a summit in February between Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump that was hosted by Hanoi.


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BENARNEWS- U.S. authorities placed an ex-Goldman Sachs banker under house arrest after he was ordered released on a $1-million cash bail Monday following his extradition from Malaysia to face charges related to embezzling billions of dollars from state investment fund 1MDB, an American Department of Justice (DOJ) official said.
Malaysian national Roger Ng entered a not guilty plea and was granted bail ahead of his trial after he appeared in a federal court in Brooklyn, N.Y., Nicole Navas, a DOJ spokeswoman, told BenarNews.
"Ng was arraigned on the indictment this afternoon before a magistrate judge in the Eastern District of New York," Navas said.
"The magistrate judge set Ng's bail conditions to: $20 million bond, $1 million of which was secured by a cash deposit," she said, adding that the conditions of his bail included "home detention with electronic monitoring."
As part of his temporary release, Ng, whose real name is Ng Chong Hwa, will be under constant electronic monitoring, Navas said, noting that the Malaysian's travel would be restricted to the eastern and southern federal districts of New York.
Ng's next court appearance is scheduled for 10 a.m. on May 23, she said.
Special Malaysian-US arrangement
Ng arrived in New York early Monday after DOJ and Malaysian officials announced his extradition separately.
In Kuala Lumpur, Malaysian Attorney General Tommy Thomas earlier told reporters that consultations were held between the two countries before forging an agreement for Ng to be sent to the United States for 10 months, in a rare move that would allow him to first face criminal charges in America.
"This is to enable him to be prosecuted in the U.S. first," Thomas said in a statement released Monday evening.
Ng, who was flown from Kuala Lumpur over the weekend, will also face charges of conspiring to violate to the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) by paying bribes to multiple government officials in Malaysia and Abu Dhabi, and conspiring to circumvent the internal accounting controls of Goldman Sachs, the U.S. DOJ said in a statement.
Ng's lawyer, Marc Agnifilo, debunked reports on Monday that he was engaged in talks for a plea deal with prosecutors.
"We are not in active plea negotiations," he told Bloomberg Monday, although he added that his client would "consider all options available to every defendant."
In a three-count indictment unsealed last year, Ng was charged with crimes he allegedly committed while employed as a managing director at Goldman Sachs, which arranged three bond sales that raised more than U.S. $6 billion in bonds for 1MDB in 2012 and 2013. He was employed at the New York-headquartered financial institution until 2014.
U.S. prosecutors alleged that high-level 1MDB officials and their associates had embezzled U.S. $4.5 billion from the Malaysian state fund during a five-year period starting in 2009, using the money to buy real estate in California and New York, artwork by Picasso and Monet, a luxury yacht and jewelry.
The scandal led to the ouster of Prime Minister Najib Razak's government last year. Najib, who founded 1MDB, is also facing 42 criminal charges related to the 1MDB looting. He has pleaded not guilty. 

"As part of the scheme, Ng and others conspired to bribe government officials in Malaysia and Abu Dhabi to obtain and retain lucrative business," the U.S. DOJ said Monday. "They further conspired to launder the proceeds of their criminal conduct through the U.S. financial system."
Ng was arrested in Malaysia on Nov. 1, 2018, upon U.S. request, and later waived extradition to the United States, the DOJ statement said, adding that he was scheduled to make his first appearance Monday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Peggy Kuo in Brooklyn.
Ng is one of the two ex-Goldman bankers charged by U.S. prosecutors. If convicted on the three charges, he faces up to 30 years in prison, according to DOJ officials.
On June 7, 2018, the DOJ also filed conspiracy charges against Tim Leissner, Goldman Sachs' former Southeast Asia chairman, alleging he had violated anti-bribery and money laundering laws. On the same date, Leissner pleaded guilty to the charges and has been ordered to forfeit U.S. $43.7 million.
Leissner, who faces up to 10 years in prison, is free on bail and is scheduled to be sentenced on June 28, according to U.S. prosecutors.
Malaysian minister signs surrender warrant
In an about-face on April 25, Malaysian Home Minister Muhyiddin Yassin signed Ng's "temporary surrender warrant," Thomas said.
"Roger Ng was temporarily surrendered to the U.S. on 3rd May 2019, and shall be returned to Malaysia to face our charges as soon as the proceedings in the U.S. are concluded," the Malaysian government's top prosecutor said in his statement.
The temporary extradition may be extended upon mutual agreement by the two countries, Thomas said, without elaborating.
Legal proceedings against Ng in the United States had been delayed mainly because Muhyiddin said the former banker should first face criminal charges in Malaysia, where he faces four charges of helping the bank provide misleading information during the 1MDB bond sales. He has pleaded not guilty.
In its lawsuits announced in November 2018, the U.S. DOJ alleged that Ng and Malaysian fugitive Low Taek Jho – who is better known as Jho Low – had misappropriated billions of dollars from 1MDB, Malaysia's investment arm established in 2009 ostensibly to fund the country's development program. Prosecutors said the duo and other conspirators laundered the money through complex financial transactions.
In Sydney, an Australian public relations firm that represents Jho Low issued a statement late Monday about Ng's extradition. Wells Haslem Mayhew Strategic Public Affairs accused the Malaysian government of "attempting to tout its cooperation with the U.S. when it shares no common ground on basic human and legal rights."
"While Malaysia agreed to the transfer when Mr. Ng first waived extradition in February, the regime's leaders then back-tracked and invented the concept of a 'fast track trial,' Benjamin Haslem, co-CEO of the firm, said in a statement emailed to BenarNews.
"Unsurprisingly this failed when the politically motivated Government focused all its efforts persecuting its predecessors with show trials and abusive use of arrest warrants. It is good that Mr. Ng has been rescued from Malaysia's inhumane prison conditions and a process controlled by a leader with a history of abusing the judicial system to destroy political opponents," Haslem added.
He was referring to the 1-year-old government of Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who had previously served as PM for 22 years.
Prosecutors, meanwhile, said that Goldman Sachs had received about U.S. $600 million in fees after it raised more than U.S. $6 billion in the bond offerings on 1MDB's behalf. Malaysian authorities had earlier said the government was seeking up to U.S. $7.7 billion in reparations from Goldman Sachs over the 1MDB scandal.
"We continue to cooperate with all relevant authorities as the process continues to move forward," Michael DuVally, a Goldman spokesman, said in a statement released Monday.


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BENARNEWS- Mohamad Fuzi Harun retired as Malaysia's police chief last week after being criticized for failing to act promptly over a corruption scandal linked to ex-premier Najib Razak, while a senior policeman who had been ousted after speaking out against the fiasco succeeded him.
Abdul Hamid Bador, the 61-year-old son of a constable is the new chief of the Royal Malaysia Police, a federal-level force composed of 130,000 officers. He was hired as the nation's top policeman on a special two-year contract, although he had surpassed the mandatory retirement age of 60.
"I am honored to be given the trust to lead the force," Abdul Hamid said after Fuzi handed him the reins of the police department on Friday, according to Malaysia's Star newspaper.
Fuzi praised his successor during the ceremony, saying "He is the right man for the job."
"I am confident that he will be able to carry on the legacy of excellence and elevate the police force even further," Fuzi said, according to the Star.
Abdul Hamid was reinstated on the national force as deputy chief by Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad soon after the Pakatan Harapan coalition ousted Najib's government in the May 2018 general election.
Abdul Hamid had retired four years ago after Najib's government transferred him out of the force. That move came after he spoke out against the scandal tied to 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), a state fund founded by Najib in 2009.
When he was deputy chief of the police's Special Branch, Abdul Hamid openly criticized Najib's administration, alleging that the prime minister declined to follow his department's advice about 1MDB.
Fuzi, who turned 60 on May 4, succeeded Khalid Abu Bakar as Inspector General of Police (IGP) in September 2017. But rumors about Fuzi's forthcoming removal from the top police post began to circulate several weeks after he helped the new Pakatan government in its transition to power.
On May 10, 2018 – a day after the election – Fuzi convened a news conference in Kuala Lumpur at which he urged all parties to cooperate for a smooth transition between governments.
The police chief, the military commander, and the chief secretary had made plans to seek an audience with Malaysia's king on the matter soon to avoid any unrest following to the electoral defeat of the Barisan Nasional coalition.
"During the meeting, we agreed that the process should be done as soon as possible," Fuzi told reporters.
"We will seek an audience with Yang di-Pertuan Agong Sultan Muhammad V [the king] as soon as possible to brief him on the transition of powers," Fuzi said then.
But two months later, rumors swirled that Fuzi would be removed as police chief due to his perceived failure to act swiftly when the 1MDB scandal first became public in July 2015 while he was chief of the special branch, the intelligence arm of the Royal Malaysia Police.
A highly placed source told BenarNews the reason for efforts at that time to remove Fuzi, who officially retired on Friday.
"Dereliction of duty, a failure to investigate criminal action on 1MDB," the source said.
Fuzi also came under scrutiny over contradictory comments he had made about an associate of Najib: Malaysian financier Low Taek Jho. 

Better known as Jho Low, the businessman is now a fugitive from the law and a major figure in international investigations into the 1MDB scandal, from which billions of dollars were allegedly embezzled.
"Jho Low is not part of 1MDB and has never worked for the company. Every business transaction was made by the board of directors," Fuzi was quoted as saying in March 2018, two months before the general election, according to the Malay-language daily Berita Harian.
However, Fuzi said something different after Pakatan Harapan came to power.
In a report published by The Star, Fuzi said his men had been tracking Jho Low and were cooperating with various counterparts abroad, including from China.
"Our discussions with our counterparts are ongoing and a few officers have been tasked for the engagement. I know many people said he (Jho Low) is in China but it is not definitive," The Star quoted him as saying.
Fuzi did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BenarNews.
Abdul Hamid: 'I must set a good example'
On May 1, two days before Fuzi's retirement, Mahathir announced that Fuzi would be replaced by Abdul Hamid.
Despite his early career in general policing duties, Abdul Hamid was virtually unknown in the public eye. But in 2014, his name emerged as being among the main negotiators in Lahad Datu, when a band of fighters from nearby Sulu, Philippines launched an incursion into the eastern Malaysia state of Sabah.
Abdul Hamid was also awarded the Bhayankara Nararya Star, the highest award by the Indonesian government, after helping authorities in the neighboring country cripple cells associated with Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) and pro-Islamic State (IS) militants.
With 40 years of experience in the police force, Abdul Hamid has a huge task at hand: to get his officers to toe the line and clean up any abuse of power and corruption within the force.
"One must realize that a thousand bad cops do not represent a hundred thousand good ones out there," Abdul Hamid told the Sun newspaper.
"These fine police personnel have long been marginalized and I assure them that under my watch, only the good ones will be counted," he was quoted as saying on Sunday.
"But first, I must set a good example," he said


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BENARNEWS- The United States has started returning to Malaysia almost U.S. $200 million recovered from forfeitures and seizures of assets linked to scandal-plagued state fund 1MDB, the Malaysian government's chief lawyer said Tuesday.
Attorney General Tommy Thomas said U.S. officials so far had deposited $57 million forfeited from Red Granite Pictures, a Hollywood film production company founded by former Prime Minister Najib Razak's stepson, Riza Aziz, who is facing allegations that he used embezzled 1MDB funds to finance blockbuster films.
"The Government of the United States of America has returned, and will be returning, substantial monies to Malaysia," Thomas said in a statement.
"Malaysia has recovered U.S. $322 million (some 1.3 billion ringgit) worth of 1MDB assets since investigation into 1MDB effectively began (in May 2018)," he said, referring to the state fund formally known as 1Malaysia Development Berhad.
Singapore has returned U.S. $11 million that had been traced to 1MDB, Thomas said, adding that an additional U.S. $25.7 million "will be credited shortly" to the recovery account.
"1MDB asset recovery efforts across the globe are still ongoing," he said, "and Malaysia is optimistic of recovering further monies in the coming months."
The Malaysian government's announcement came a day after U.S. authorities placed ex-Goldman Sachs banker Roger Ng under house arrest following his extradition from Kuala Lumpur to face charges related to the alleged theft of billions of dollars from 1MDB.
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has accused Ng of conspiring to launder money after he led the sale of bonds through Goldman Sachs in 2012 and 2013.
Ng, a Malaysian national, was charged with crimes he allegedly committed while employed as a managing director at the New York-based Goldman Sachs, which arranged three bond sales that raised more than U.S. $6 billion for 1MDB, according to indictment documents unsealed last year.
Peggy Kuo, a magistrate judge at the U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, New York, allowed Ng's release after he posted a $1 million cash bail out of a U.S. $20 million bond. Ng was also ordered to wear an ankle bracelet, which would allow authorities to constantly monitor his movements within the state, officials told BenarNews.
Najib founded 1MDB in 2009 ostensibly to boost Malaysia's economy through strategic investments.
But, according to U.S. prosecutors, 1MDB officials and their associates instead embezzled U.S. $4.5 billion from the sovereign wealth fund during a five-year period starting in 2009, diverting the money into private bank accounts and buying U.S. real estate, artwork, a yacht and a private jet, among other luxury items.
Najib is facing 42 criminal charges related to the 1MDB looting. He has pleaded not guilty.
Thomas said the U.S. DOJ was also in the process of remitting $139 million, after the sale of a Manhattan property linked to fugitive Malaysian financier Jho Low. All costs incurred by the DOJ and the FBI in investigating and securing settlements would be deducted from the amount, he said.
Low has been described by investigators as a central figure in the 1MDB scandal. He has denied wrongdoing in statements distributed through his public relations agents. His whereabouts are unknown.


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BENARNEWS- Malaysia's Pakatan Harapan government has fallen short of fulfilling campaign promises to improve the country's human rights standing a year after coming to power in a historic election, two leading global rights watchdogs said Wednesday.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Amnesty International held a joint news conference to assess the rights record under Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's government, on the eve of the first anniversary of polls that saw the UMNO party swept out of power for the first time in 61 years.
"Human rights in the international system, the duty bearers are the government. It means the government has the responsibility to protect the human rights of all," said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director for Human Rights Watch. "So when we don't see that happening, when we see the step back from these pledges, it raises real concerns on political commitment."
A year was enough time to undo actions by the previous government, said Shamini Darshni Kaliemuthu, the head of Amnesty's Malaysia office, during the press conference near Kuala Lumpur.
"PH [Pakatan Harapan] planned a lot of things in its manifesto. It takes political will," she told reporters. "There are decisions that can be made by the cabinet, whether to abolish, amend or review. Political will is lacking now."
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Mahathir, who spoke to reporters on Monday to mark the anniversary, gave his cabinet a "five out of 10" score and said its members were learning how government functions.
"And we have one single objective, to bring back the Malaysia that we knew before," said Mahathir, who had previously served as prime minister, from 1981 to 2003, when he led the United Malays National Organization (UMNO) and its Barisan Nasional coalition.
Government officials could not be immediately reached on Wednesday to respond to the comments from HRW and Amnesty.
Mahathir returned to power after leading the opposition Pakatan coalition, whose electoral platform included human rights reform, to a stunning victory on May 9, 2018.
"I am very conservative. I have been in the government for 22 years and I know how government functions, but these people (ministers) are new, they do not know how a government functions," Mahathir said on Monday. "They are so afraid of being accused of wrongdoing and all this makes their decision-making more difficult.
"But they are learning very fast. Sometimes they come to me because I have the experience. I have to teach and guide them so that they can perform," he added.

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Shamini Darshni Kaliemuthu (left), executive director of Amnesty International Malaysia, appears with Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director for Human Rights Watch, at a press conference in Petaling Jaya, Malaysia, May 8, 2019. [Radzi Razak/BenarNews]

'Follow through'
The Pakatan government had not gone far enough in rights-related efforts during its first year in power because officials had not been able to move past public opinion and rise above "destructive" politics, Robertson said.
This was disconcerting and entirely out of proportion, he said, because the Pakatan alliance had promised reforms and commitment to human rights.
"The government should recognize that further delays in ending abusive systems and laws will only mean further harm for the Malaysian people," Robertson told reporters in Petaling Jaya.
"They need to understand that they are elected and have made commitments, and follow through on them, things will be all right."
Robertson pointed to Mahathir backpedaling in November 2018 on a campaign promise to sign the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD). The government had faced a backlash from critics who said it could undermine privileges enshrined in the constitution for the ethnic Malay majority.
Robertson said Malaysia was not unique because many countries had people of different races and religions living side by side, and were able to ratify U.N. conventions, implement human rights law and ensure that peace and tranquility was maintained.
However, in its annual report which was published in January and covered the previous year, Human Rights Watch described the atmosphere for free speech in Malaysia as dramatically improved since Pakatan took over last May. In April, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said the climate for a free press in the country had also improved considerably under the new government.
In a brief statement to the media, Mahathir's office had confirmed that the government would abandon the U.N. convention and continue to uphold the constitution, but did not provide a reason for that decision.
Five months later, Mahathir withdrew from the Rome Statute, which forms the basis of the International Criminal Court (ICC).
He told a news conference last month that the country would not accede to the Rome Statute because opposition politicians had been able "to create confusion in the minds of the people, that this law negates the rights of the Malays and the rights of the rulers."
"This is not because we are against it, but because of the political confusion about what it entails, caused by people with vested interests," Mahathir said.
Last December, the new government appeared to abandon electoral pledges to repeal provisions of controversial national security laws.
A special committee appointed by the government had concluded that such legislation – which drew criticism for potential human rights abuses – was needed to protect Malaysia from organized crime and terror threats, Home Minister Muhyiddin Yassin said at the time.
These national security laws included the Security Offenses (Special Measures) Act, or SOSMA, a law that was introduced six years ago to fight terror threats, and the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA).


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BENARNEWS- Malaysia's government is seeking to legalize last year's seizure by authorities of 720 million ringgit (U.S. $173 million) in cash and valuable items during raids linked to ex-Prime Minister Najib Razak, as part of their probe into the 1MBD corruption scandal, police said Wednesday.
Prosecutors have filed a court motion for a ruling to allow the government to legally seize the cash, real-estate and items such as luxury handbags that were allegedly obtained with money stolen from the sovereign wealth fund, a senior police officer told BenarNews.
The Attorney-General's Chamber filed a legal notice at the Kuala Lumpur High Court giving it permission to confiscate hundreds of items, said Khalil Azlan Chik, chief of the police's Anti-Money Laundering division.
"Based on reports compiled by the police, the Attorney-General's Chamber had filed a motion and supporting affidavits to the court on Tuesday," Khalil told BenarNews. "The total value of the items is around 720 million ringgit."
The items, including suitcases full of cash and boxes of high-priced items, were carted off by police during raids last year at Kuala Lumpur area residences and addresses associated with the former prime minister and his wife, Rosmah Mansor.
State-run news service Bernama said the notice named Najib as the first respondent, followed by Rosmah, stepson Riza Shahriz Abdul Aziz, his children with Rosmah, and other individuals.

Khalil said the court filing came as a result of the June 2018 raids at luxury condominiums and offices, during which authorities seized luxury goods that were initially estimated by authorities to be worth up to U.S. $273 million.

"First, the assets were frozen, then, seized, so now is the forfeiture process through the court," Khalil said. "It means that if the court accepts our motion, all the belongings will legally no longer belong to Najib and Rosmah."
 
The police raids were part of a probe into the disappearance of billions of dollars from 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), a state investment fund started by Najib in 2009 ostensibly to promote economic growth.
U.S. prosecutors are seeking to recover a total of $1.7 billion in assets allegedly siphoned off by Najib and his associates from the sovereign wealth fund.
Among the valuables hauled off by police during the raids were 12,000 pieces of jewelry, 117 million ringgit (U.S. $29 million) in cash in different currencies, luxury handbags and a large number of designer Swiss-made watches.
Authorities did not find a rare 22-carat pink diamond worth $27.3 million that, U.S. investigators claim, was bought with funds stolen from 1MDB.
Tuesday's court filing came to light after a source within the police department tipped-off The Edge Markets, a local business-focused publication.
Najib, who is facing 42 criminal charges related to the 1MDB looting, berated the court filing Wednesday, saying the government was losing legal grounds to hold the items in its custody.
"The terms of the seizure is set to expire in 10 days on May 18, whereby after that date, according to the law, all items need to be returned if the authorities failed to prove that it was purchased using illegally sourced funds and did not pursue a charge regarding the possession of those items," Najib said in a Facebook post.
Najib has pleaded not guilty to some of the criminal charges. If found guilty on all, he could be sentenced to decades in prison and given fines up to millions of dollars.

Lawyer promises court challenge
Najib's lawyer, Shafee Abdullah, vowed to challenge the government's forfeiture move.   

"I don't think they (the government) can do that. I think they are rushing on everything," he told reporters.
The court filings took place on the same day authorities announced that Washington had started returning to Malaysia almost U.S. $200 million recovered from forfeitures and seizures of assets linked to 1MDB.

The government was within its right to seek the forfeiture of seized assets under the Anti -Money Laundering, Terrorism Financing and Proceeds of Unlawful Act 2001, legal expert Amir Faliq told BenarNews.

"The prosecution has to satisfy the court that all the seized properties are proceeds of unlawful activities," he said. "If the court is satisfied then only the seized properties will be ordered to be forfeited."


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BENARNEWS- Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad called Thursday on parties in the ruling bloc to stay united or risk turning Malaysia into a "failed state," as the nation marked the first anniversary of a stunning change in governments.
The four members of the Pakatan Harapan coalition, or Alliance of Hope, had put aside their differences in a historic election a year ago on May 9 to rid Malaysia of what Mahathir described as a kleptocracy, during a televised speech at a celebration rally in the administrative capital Putrajaya.
"Pakatan Harapan was founded as a coalition of four opposing parties. The aim was only one – to topple the Najib Razak-led Barisan Nasional (BN) government," he said to a round of applause from those gathered at the Putrajaya International Convention Center.
Mahathir recounted how Pakatan faced an uphill battle against the incumbent coalition, whose anchor party, the United Malays National Organization (UMNO), had led Malaysia throughout the country's 61-year existence.
Political pundits, academicians and newspaper columnists who deemed the campaign an impossible task did not fully understand the public's frustration with BN's corruption, the prime minister said.
"Without fear of threats, pressure and polling day corruption, the people denied Barisan Nasional and gave a big mandate to Pakatan Harapan," he said.
"But if we cannot put aside our differences, things will get worse, the country will suffer and Malaysia would be in danger of becoming a failed state," he added.
Pakatan, consisting of the mainly ethnic-Chinese Democratic Action Party (DAP), the People's Justice Party (PKR), the faith-based National Trust Party (Amanah) and the Malaysian United Indigenous Party (Bersatu) chaired by Mahathir won 113 of the 222 seats in parliament to take control of the government through its majority.
Since then, the Pakatan government has cracked down against corruption, reopening an investigation into the beleaguered state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).
The probe led to criminal charges against Najib and others linked to what, the U.S. Justice Department alleged, included the diversion of $4.5 billion (18.3 billion ringgit) in 1MDB-linked money into bank accounts belonging to him, his friends and family. American government officials have described the 1MDB scandal, which reached across the globe, as "kleptocracy at its worst."
Even as Najib stands trial on seven of 42 charges filed against him, Mahathir said people were becoming bored with hearing about the wrongdoings of the previous government and were hammering the current administration to deliver on election promises.
"The reality is that the wrongdoing of the Barisan Nasional government under Najib is a huge problem that is getting in the way of national recovery and the public's prosperity," Mahathir said in Thursday's speech.
In addition, his government, which made promises in its Book of Hope election manifesto, has faced a barrage of criticism from opponents aligned with Najib for failing to deliver and instead using the former prime minister as a scapegoat.
"The key challenge is to restore the image of this country. We have a lot of people taking potshots at us, including the press and now social media, because they see us as a target," Mahathir said.
A year into its government, the ruling coalition has brought diversity to its leadership in multiethnic and multi-religious Malaysia. Among the government firsts are a female deputy prime minister, Wan Azizah Wan Ismail; female chief justice, Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat; and an attorney general not from ethnic Malay majority, Tommy Thomas.
"We have to do something, and when you do something you expose yourself to criticism – we must take action against miscreants who stole money from the government," the prime minister said. "Of course, some people are not very happy, because they thought they can get away with their misdeeds."
Najib: 'Sad with what is happening with our country'
After a year of appearing in court to face a litany of charges and watching police remove millions in cash, jewelry and designer handbags from properties linked to him, Najib has started to see a rise in popularity. Among those turning back to Najib are disgruntled voters who hoped for the immediate economic solution promised by Pakatan.
On the anniversary of the election that swept him from power, Najib posted a 12-minute video to Facebook where he read a list of Pakatan failures along with what he called slanders thrown at him. The video had more than 100,000 views during its first hour.
"I am sad with what is happening with our country just after one year, but there is a silver lining because the people can make a comparison between Pakatan Harapan and Barisan Nasional," Najib said.
Interim prime minister
Speaking to reporters before his televised address, Mahathir, 93, talked about remaining in office. But he did not clarify whether he planned to stay on as the nation's leader for one or two more years.
He had campaigned on stepping down to make way for his successor, Anwar Ibrahim, the leader of PKR who was in prison last year but was since pardoned by the king and elected to parliament.
"I think I will be able to make most of the correction in the period of two years and after that the others will have less problem with it," Mahathir said, adding that he saw himself as an interim prime minister.
Anwar, meanwhile, delivered his own message to mark the coalition's first year in office. He issued a warning against racism before thanking Mahathir, a former political foe, for rallying the opposition to victory in 2018.
"The problem of race relations in the country appears to be getting worse amid Harapan's efforts to realize the coveted change and reforms," he told Malaysiakini news site on Wednesday. "The threat of racist and communal flames should not be taken lightly and brushed aside, and if left unchecked could destroy all the efforts to put the country back on track."
Mahathir has been under pressure from Malays to protect privileges for them that are enshrined in the constitution.
In November, he backpedaled on a campaign pledge that his government would support a U.N. treaty, the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD). The move came amid a backlash from critics who expressed fears that backing the treaty could undermine those privileges for Malays.
A year on, the Pakatan government is caught in a political and socioeconomic see-saw, Political analyst Oh Ei Sun observed.
"On one end, they have their liberal-core voter base and on the other are the regressive, conservative voters who eluded them in the last general election and whom they are eager to court," Oh told BenarNews. "Hence you see the frequent flip-flopping of erstwhile liberal-minded policy initiatives."
Having reached the goal of toppling Najib, Oh said the loose PH coalition could unravel.
"It is possible if they don't take care of the looming succession crisis between an obviously reluctant Mahathir and a conspicuously assertive Anwar," he said.


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BENARNEWS- Two Rohingya were among suspects apprehended in a foiled Islamic State (IS) plot in Malaysia to attack worship sites and assassinate "high-profile personalities" during Ramadan, police said Monday, in the first terror-related arrests there involving members of the Myanmar ethnic minority.
Officials said the Rohingya and two other suspects were arrested in raids in Kuala Lumpur and Terengganu between May 5 and 7, and planned to bomb Hindu temples, Buddhist temples, churches and entertainment spots during the first week of the Islamic month of fasting, which began May 6.
"This is the first time we arrest Rohingyas. Prior to this, there was no case involving them," a police source close to the investigation told BenarNews.
The order to execute the plot was given by a Malaysian militant operating in Syria, but his identity was not known, Abdul Hamid Bador, Malaysia's new chief of police, told a news conference in Kuala Lumpur.
"A Malaysian had instructed the cell members to launch the attack. They have been planning it since January. We are still trying to identify the person. They communicate via WhatsApp," he told reporters.
One of the Rohingya suspects in custody was a 20-year-old who held a U.N. refugee card and had admitted to showing support for the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), an insurgent group operating in Myanmar's Rakhine state, home to the stateless Rohingya community, the police chief said.
"He was also planning to launch an attack at the Myanmar Embassy in Kuala Lumpur," Abdul Hamid said, adding that the second Rohingya suspect was a 25-year-old laborer who had admitted to being part of a local IS cell.
ARSA later reacted via social media to news reports about the arrests in Malaysia, pointing to the case of an individual who, it said, allegedly claimed to be one of its members.
"It is again reassured that #ARSA only legitimately and objectively operates as an #ETHNO-NATIONALIST movement within its homeland #Burma & its activities had not & will not transcend beyond its country," ARSA said on its Twitter channel.
The group also expressed its gratitude to Malaysia and other ASEAN nations for hosting displaced Rohingya people, saying "their sovereignty will be duly respected all the time."
In Myanmar, ARSA insurgents were blamed for deadly attacks on police and army outposts in Rakhine state in August 2017 that precipitated a brutal military crackdown. That, in turn, caused more than 700,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee and seek shelter in neighboring Bangladesh.
Last year, Bangladeshi authorities arrested some ARSA members near the Myanmar border, including some who were "shooting at the Myanmar security forces," a senior government official told BenarNews then.
"We urge all #Rohingyas to abide by the laws of all host countries in the World while abstaining from any destructive elements and related radical actions," ARSA tweeted on Tuesday.
Malaysian, Indonesian among suspects
The four suspects in custody in Malaysia were led by a Malaysian and included an Indonesian national, police chief Abdul Hamid said.
They were plotting to carry out assassinations and terrorist acts to avenge the death of a Malay Muslim firefighter, who died in November 2018 after allegedly being attacked during rioting at a minority Hindu temple in Selangor state, Abdul Hamid said.
"The four suspects arrested admitted to being part of the IS cell and ready to launch attacks in Malaysia during the first week of the Ramadan to avenge the death of Mohd Adib, who succumbed ... following the injuries sustained during the violence at the Sri Mariaman Seafield in Petaling Jaya," the police inspector-general said.
All four suspects were being held under Malaysia's Security Offences (Special Measures) Act, police said.
Police were also hunting for three more members of the cell who went into hiding after last week's arrests, Abdul Hamid said.
Officers seized an automatic pistol, 15 bullets and six improvised explosive devices (IED) during operations that led to the suspects' arrests.
"These four men had planned to kill personalities in the country. They are highly placed individuals whose identities cannot be revealed because it is sensitive," the anonymous police source told BenarNews.
"He was also planning to launch an attack at the Myanmar Embassy in Kuala Lumpur," Abdul Hamid said.
Regional haven
Malaysia, a predominantly Muslim country, has been seen a safe haven in Southeast Asia for Rohingya fleeing from persecution in Buddhist majority Myanmar and violence in Rakhine state. There are at least 90,200 Rohingya living in Malaysia, according to UNHCR, the U.N.'s refugee agency.
Last year, Malaysian Defense Minister Mohamad Sabu expressed worry about the possibility of Rohingya expatriates turning to extremism.
"We are concerned that the Rohingyas could be manipulated to become suicide bombers or recruited into terrorist cells in this region," he told a Kuala Lumpur meeting of counterterrorist security professionals in August.
The alleged involvement of the Rohingya and Indonesian in the terror plot showed that IS was capable of using foreigners to exploit local issues in advancing its ideology, said Ahmad El Muhammady, a Malaysian counterterrorism expert.
"The regional environment today is ripe for such [an] attack. We have seen similar events taking place in Sri Lanka and New Zealand," Ahmad told BenarNews, referring to deadly mass shootings at two mosques in Christchurch and massive coordinate suicide bombings that targeted churches and hotels in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday.
To date in 2019, about 30 people have been arrested for alleged terror activities in Malaysia. Of the number, 10 have been charged while nine were subsequently released, six were deported and one was referred to a foreign agency. The last four remain in custody


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BENARNEWS- Malaysia extradited a woman wanted by Thailand for anti-monarchy activities after Bangkok requested her deportation, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said Tuesday, but a leading human rights group said the move violated legal obligations because the deportee had sought asylum abroad.
Praphan Pipithnamporn, who was registered as an asylum seeker by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), was sent back to Thailand on May 10 after Malaysian police arrested her last month on Bangkok's request, New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said.
"If there is a request, then we will send back," Mahathir told a news conference. "(We are a) good neighbor."
Praphan was sent home based on a January arrest warrant issued by Thai authorities, who accused her of sedition for alleged involvement with the Organization for Thai Federation, a peaceful anti-monarchy group, HRW said in a statement.
"Malaysia's flouting of international law has placed a Thai activist at grave risk of arbitrary detention and an unjust prosecution in Thailand," said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch.
"Malaysian authorities have an obligation to protect asylum seekers like Praphan from being forcibly returned to the risk of being persecuted for their peaceful political views," he said.
Praphan's deportation came on the same day that Thai authorities denied knowledge about the possible extradition from Vietnam of three critics of Thailand's monarchy and military junta.
The Vietnamese government returned Thai citizens Chucheep Chivasut, Siam Theerawut and Kritsana Thapthai to Thailand on May 8, HRW and Amnesty International (AI) said in separate statements last Friday. The two groups based their information on reports from Thai media and a local NGO, the Thai Alliance for Human Rights.
'Person of concern'
Prior to fleeing to Malaysia, Praphan was arrested several times between September and December 2018, and held in incommunicado military detention, HRW said.
The threats against her intensified after she participated in peaceful anti-monarchy activity during the birthday memorial for the late King Rama IX on Dec. 5, she claimed in an interview with HRW. On that day, she wore a black T-shirt with a logo of her group and handed out leaflets criticizing the monarchy in a Bangkok shopping mall, the rights group said. 

Praphan fled to Malaysia in January, and applied for refugee status with UNHCR in Kuala Lumpur. On April 2, the refugee agency registered her claim as an asylum seeker and designated her a "person of concern," HRW said.
The Socialist Party of Malaysia, an opposition party, meanwhile expressed concerns Tuesday over Praphan's deportation. It slammed Mahathir's government "for behaving like an accomplice of the Thai military junta in suppressing dissent and limiting democratic space."
"Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad should realize that aiding an undemocratic regime in persecution of pro-democracy political activists, is not something a 'good neighbor' should do," said Choo Chon Kai, the party's international bureau coordinator.
Expelled from Vietnam
The three Thai activists deported by Vietnam – Chucheep, Siam and Kritsana – had been arrested in Hanoi for illegal entry and using fake travel documents as they tried to flee persecution from Thai authorities, HRW said. Rights groups said the three men were being held in Bangkok.
Thai Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwan told reporters last week that he learned of the three men's extradition only from news websites. "The confirmation must come from the Foreign Ministry and special branch of police," he said.
Thai authorities had accused the three of broadcasting anti-monarchy radio programs over the internet in violation of the kingdom's strict Lese-Majeste, according to HRW. That law criminalizes royal defamation and carries a prison sentence of three to 15 years.
"Neighboring countries should not be contributing to Thailand's increasingly dire human rights situation by sending asylum seekers into harm's way," Adams said in his statement.
The reported extradition of the three Thai dissidents occurred after Truong Duy Nhat, a blogger working for the Vietnamese Service of Radio Free Asia (RFA) – a BenarNews sister service – disappeared from a shopping mall near Bangkok in January. He had fled Vietnam in 2017 to escape arrest over his activism.
In late March, RFA's Vietnamese Service confirmed that agents from Hanoi had taken Nhat back to Vietnam. That fueled suspicions that Thai authorities had cooperated in his abduction. The blogger was now in a jail cell in the Vietnamese capital, Nhat's daughter told RFA.


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BENARNEWS- Police in Malaysia said Thursday they had arrested three remaining members of an Islamic State (IS) cell, while a department source identified a Malaysian militant in Syria – an ex-rocker – as the one who ordered them to conduct terror attacks at home during Ramadan.
The three suspects – two Malaysians and an Indonesian – were picked up in northern Kedah state and in Selangor state on Tuesday in the wake of the arrests of four other cell members, including two Rohingya, in early May.
Police allege that the members of the IS cell planned to carry out terrorist acts and assassinations during the first week of the Muslim fasting month, which began May 5, to avenge the death of a Malay Muslim firefighter during a riot at a local Hindu temple last November.
When he announced the first four arrests on Monday, Malaysian police chief Abdul Hamid Bador said the IS cell members had received orders from a Malaysian militant operating in Syria, but his identity was unknown.
On Thursday, a high-placed police source identified the cell's Syrian contact to BenarNews.
"Investigations revealed the person is Akel Zainal (whose real name is Wan Mohd Aquil Wan Zainal)," the source said, adding that investigators were not sure if he was still alive after the fall of the last IS stronghold in Syria in March.
While naming Akel, the source said investigators had some doubts about his identity.
"We could not confirm it. The person could be Akel or could be someone who impersonated him. The situation in Syria is quite volatile now. We could not pinpoint his whereabouts," he said. 

Akel rose to fame as a drummer in a 1990s Malaysian rock band. In 2014, he left Malaysia to join IS in Syria, police said.
Following the death in 2017 of Muhammad Wanndy Mohamed Jedi, who had been Malaysia's top IS recruiter, investigators identified Akel as one of four who likely would take over his recruiting role.
The source said one of the cell members told police that Akel, through a middleman, had provided them with a pistol, 15 bullets and improvised explosive devices in order to launch attacks in Malaysia. The weapons and explosives were seized when the first four suspects were captured.
Bomb training in Indonesia
In a statement on Thursday, Abdul Hamid said the two Malaysian suspects – Muhammad Syazani Mahzan and Muhamad Nuurul Amin Azizan – were picked up in Kedah on May 14.
"Both were nabbed when their respective families turned them in to police after they were listed as wanted the day before," he said, adding that Muhammad Syazani had allegedly planned to launch attacks on non-Muslim houses of worship in Malaysia.
The two, along with fellow Malaysian Muhammad Izham Razani, who was arrested on Nov. 22, 2018, had received bomb-making training last year in Jogjakarta, Indonesia, according to police.
"While there, they learned to make Triacetone Triperoxide (TATP), a type of chemical used to produce huge-scale explosives and vehicle bombs. Both suspects also scouted several churches in Jogjakarta, Indonesia, in view of launching attacks," Abdul Hamid said.
TATP is a white crystalline explosive of choice among IS bombers, and it was used in the Easter Sunday attacks in Sri Lanka last month that killed hundreds of people, according to media reports.
The third suspect, an Indonesian identified as Nuruddin Alele (alias Fatir), was arrested in Selangor state on Tuesday as well, the Malaysian police chief said.
"The suspect was a member of the Islamic State's cell whose other members were arrested on May 5 and 7, and was involved in planning killings and attacks on Christian, Hindu, and Buddhist houses of worship, as well as entertainment centers in the Klang Valley. His arrest was based on a public tip," Abdul Hamid said.
"The suspect was exposed to IS ideology while serving a five-year jail sentence in Surabaya, Indonesia."
All three were detained under Act 574 of the Malaysian Penal Code and would be investigated under the Security Offenses (Special Measures) Act 2012, according to the police chief.
Since the beginning of the year, about 33 suspected terrorists have been arrested in Malaysia. Of the number, 10 have been charged while nine were released, six were deported and one was referred to a foreign agency. Seven remain in custody but have not been charged.


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BENARNEWS- Southeast Asian nations are facing increased dumping of waste from industrialized nations, with Malaysia and the Philippines threatening to send back trash to countries of origin.
Manila has recalled its ambassador and other senior diplomats from Canada after Filipino officials said Ottawa had failed to meet a deadline last week for removing tons of waste that it sent to the Philippines six years ago.
The region has seen a spike in imports of mainly plastic waste after China last year stopped importing refuse for recycling to cut down on pollution.
Waste imports into countries such as Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia and Vietnam in 2018 were mainly from the United States, Japan, Germany, Britain, Belgium and Canada.
"We do not want to be called the world's dumping ground," Malaysian Environment Minister Yeo Bee Yin told a news conference on Friday. "We will send the waste back to the country of origin."
The industrialized nations that shipped their waste to booming local recycling businesses would have to bear the cost in removing and taking back the trash, she said.
Yeo's comments came a week after 187 countries adopted amendments to the Basel Convention, a 1989 treaty that aims to reduce the movement of plastic and hazardous waste across national borders.
Those amendments, approved during a conference in Geneva this month, would enter into force on Jan. 1, 2021 and require nations that export plastic waste to first obtain permission from countries receiving the trash.
Before it restricted waste imports, China took in about 45 percent of the world's scrap plastic, according to a 2018 report from Science Advances, a journal published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
But when Beijing enacted a national policy that phased in restrictions on imports of recyclable paper and plastic in January 2018, it caused scrap prices to plummet and turned Southeast Asian nations into primary importers of plastic waste.
"Plastic waste from industrialized countries is literally engulfing communities in Southeast Asia, transforming what were once clean and thriving places into toxic dumpsites," Von Hernandez, global coordinator of the Break Free from Plastic movement, an alliance of NGOs, said in a statement last month.
"It is the height of injustice that countries and communities with less capacity and resources to deal with plastic pollution are being targeted as escape valves for the throwaway plastic generated by industrialized countries," he said.
After the Chinese ban went into effect, Malaysia received more imported waste than any other nation, taking in 750,000 metric tons of plastic in 2018, valued at more than 483 million ringgit (U.S. $116 million), according to the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI), a trade association based in Washington, D.C.
China's imports dropped from more than 600,000 tons per month in 2016 to 30,000 tons monthly since January 2018, ISRI said.
"Because of the plastic waste ban imposed by China, other countries made Malaysia as their main location to export the illegal plastic waste," said Yeo, the Malaysian minister.
While squabbling with industrialized nations to reclaim their waste, many Southeast Asian nations have also taken action after they began imposing import restrictions around mid-2018.
Malaysia issues permanent ban
In July 2018, the Malaysian government revoked import permits for plastic waste. Three months later, authorities issued a permanent ban.
Malaysian authorities also launched a crackdown on unlicensed plastic recyclers. Officials arrested dozens of workers during police raids at illicit factories that were trying to cash-in on the global trade in plastic waste – valued at more than U.S. $5 billion per year.
Kuala Lumpur began moving to combat plastic waste after officials earlier said that 24 containers of plastic waste from Spain had been smuggled into Malaysia at Port Klang, Selangor, using a falsified customs declaration.
Since 2017, Malaysia has been buying discarded plastic from Britain, Australia and the United States, overrunning dozens of illegal factories with un-recyclable scrap that is often burned surreptitiously and releases chemicals such as dioxins, which could harm the nervous system.
In February, the Malaysian government said it had shut down 139 unlicensed plastic recycling factories since last July.
Indonesia: household waste mingled in
Indonesia, Southeast Asia's largest country, imported 35,000 tons of plastic waste per month from Germany, Australia and the United State in late-2018 – a sharp increase from 10,000 tons monthly in late-2017, according to trade ministry figures.
Those three countries were the leading exporters of plastic waste in Southeast Asia, which accepted more than 705 million pounds of plastic trash last year, according to Rosa Vivien Ratnawati, director general of waste management at the environment ministry in Jakarta.
"The imported plastic is non-hazardous and non-toxic waste in the form of scrap and clean plastic," she told BenarNews.
Under a 2016 Trade Ministry regulation such materials can be imported and categorized as residual waste for recycling, she said.
Ratnawati is among Indonesian officials who support the global trade in plastic waste.
In November last year, Industry Minister Airlangga Hartarto sent a letter to the environment ministry urging it to lift the existing import ban, which environmentalists claim was largely unenforced. He said Jakarta enjoyed a $40-million trade surplus by exporting recycled plastics.
Environmental groups have expressed concerns that local companies capitalized on the mountain of trash through illegal imports. They accuse illicit factories of indiscriminately incinerating the plastic waste that cannot be recycled.
"Some people profit from such imports but actually they are also adversely affected because, in fact, the waste will eventually threaten public health," Prigi Arisandi, founder of Ecological Observation and Wetlands Conservation (Ecoton), told BenarNews.
Indonesian environmentalists also claim that used paper and household waste have been coming in with plastic waste imported by factories.
"Indonesia has 55 paper companies, 22 of which are in East Java and we have found that they import used paper and what is of concern is there's plastic waste in materials that are imported," Prigi said.
"We found out that other countries, such as the United States, Britain, Canada, New Zealand and Australia, dispose of their household waste by exporting it among used paper," he said.
Ecoton estimates that as much as 70 percent of the paper coming in for recycling is contaminated with plastic waste.

[https://www]

A man stands on tons of imported plastic trash at a dumpsite in Bekasi, a city in West Java, Indonesia, May 16, 2018. [Ahmad Syamsudin/BenarNews]

Thailand reduces import quota
In Thailand, authorities have sought to deal with plastic waste imports by reducing the quota "from several hundreds of thousands of tons to 70,000 tons and allow only good, recyclable plastic," Pralong Damrongthai, director-general of the Department of Pollution Control, told BenarNews.
Thailand's imports spiked to 75,000 tons per month in early-2018 with plastic trash coming from main exporters Japan, the United States and Hong Kong, according to Greenpeace's 2018 Recycling Myth Report.
As environmental impacts deepened in Thailand's rural areas, the military-led government raided plastic recycling factories.
In mid-2018, Thailand's Natural Resources and Environment Department temporarily prohibited imports of plastic waste and announced plans to completely ban recyclable plastic imports by 2020.
"We will ban 422 kinds of wastes within a two-year time," Pralong said.
Philippine-Canada garbage row
Unwanted trash, including soiled plastic bags, has also weighed heavily on diplomatic relations between the Philippines and Canada.
Manila questioned Ottawa's pro-environment reputation after Canada missed a May 15 deadline to take back thousands of tons of trash in containers labeled as plastics that was shipped to the Philippines for recycling by a Canadian company in 2013.
Earlier on in the garbage feud, President Rodrigo Duterte even threatened to sail to Canada and personally dump the garbage on the country's shores.
Further escalating the protracted conflict, Manila recalled its ambassador and consuls to Canada on Thursday.
The Philippines would "maintain a diminished diplomatic presence" in Canada until Ottawa took back the unwelcome trash, Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr said in a message posted on Twitter last week.
On May 16, presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo Jr. said the diplomatic recall was aimed at putting pressure on Ottawa to speed up the retrieval of the garbage.
"The fact alone that Secretary Locsin has recalled our diplomats there (Canada) shows that we are not only serious, but we're warning them that we're gonna sever diplomatic relations with them," Panelo told reporters.


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BENARNEWS- Dressed in traditional Muslim garb – abaya or niqab for women, skull caps for men – the people entering a hotel banquet hall in Kuala Lumpur one recent evening looked like any other group gathering for iftar, the meal that breaks the day's fast during Ramadan.
But this was no ordinary group. It included one-time members of Jemaah Islamiyah, Darul Islam, Abu Sayyaf, al-Qaeda and the so-called Islamic State – men convicted of terrorism offenses and men detained under security laws, plus their relatives – 122 people in all.
The event has been hosted annually for 16 years by the Royal Malaysia Police to help authorities stay engaged with people once involved with or suspected of involvement in terror activities.
"We do have other programs, but it is not something that we hold on a grand scale like this. The other would be one-to-one visits, and sometimes we organize talks. It is difficult to conduct house visits to everyone, but we make sure we are contactable whenever they need us," Malaysia's counter terror chief Ayob Khan Mydin Pitchay told BenarNews.
The aim of all these efforts is to keep strong relationships with people who could be vulnerable to returning to violent activities and radical ideologies, he said.
"They had to deal a lot with public perception among others, family acceptance and financial aid as well. So we talk to their family, because family acceptance is important. Once they have that support, they will be able to stay focused and handle the pressure," Ayob said.
He described the iftar event as a reunion where ex-terrorists and former detainees get to meet not only with police officers but also with people they used to associate with in terror groups.
Asked if he was worried about hosting an event where such individuals could interact, Ayob said no.
"Those who are here have repented. They are no longer a threat," he said.
Only seven of more than 700 individuals arrested since 2001 for terrorism-related activities have relapsed, he said, citing police data.
"Our de-radicalization program is a success. Many have gone back to society and they live a normal life. Some had gone back, in fact they fled to Syria to join the caliphate, but it is an isolated case," Ayob said.
"Many regret their actions and believe that violence and extremism is not the way," he said.
'We are the only country'
People attending the event appeared uneasy around reporters and most declined to speak to the media.
One man, a government official detained by police for 28 days in 2014, gave a short interview to BenarNews on condition his name not be used.
The 32-year-old was arrested after he was believed to have attempted to flee the country to join militants in the southern Philippines. He was held under the Security Offenses (Special Measures) Act (SOSMA), which allows suspects to be detained up to 28 days without charges.
He was later released due to lack of evidence.
"I used to be detained under SOSMA. I see the law able to curb militant activities especially when it involves the country's security. Maybe what the government can do is to improve it," said the father-of-one. But he declined to say how.
He said his name had been added to a police watch list, requiring him to seek police consent before visiting any other countries.
"I do not know how long I will be on the list. I have no other comment on this matter," the man said.
Ahmad El-Muhammady, a senior lecturer with International Islamic University Malaysia, said that Malaysian police use an individualized approach to de-radicalizing extremists.
"The breaking fast event is one of the programs the police organize to engage with them," he said.
Ahmad, who participates in the rehabilitation efforts, claimed that Malaysia is the only country that uses this approach to get close to ex-terrorists.
"We are the only country. During Ramadan we invite them for breaking fast, during Eid we visit them and bring them some gifts, and when their children are entering school we help them with school shoes or a bag."


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BENARNEWS- When car bombs exploded and rattled her apartment building in Idlib, Aisyah said she was scared at first. Then she got used to the blasts.
Aisyah, a Malaysian widow of an Islamic State fighter in Syria, said her youngest child would scamper to her, crying, each time they heard the blood-curdling explosions. Yet, before her husband was killed, she said she was determined to remain in the war-torn state.
"I was not strong enough (to stay). If my husband was still alive, I would probably stay," she said. "I did not have the strength to continue to be there without him."
Aisyah, 32, spoke to BenarNews at her mother's home Wednesday in the east coast state of Terengganu, during an interview where she talked about her two years in Syria, within the vast territory once claimed by the Islamic State (IS) as its "caliphate."
She adopted and chose to be identified with a pseudonym for her safety when she was brought home by Malaysian authorities in October 2018. Officials said she was the nation's first female citizen successfully repatriated after living under IS rule.
At the height of its power, IS controlled more than 8 million people in a swath of land that spilled across the boundaries of Iraq and Syria, forcing people to go through its extreme interpretation of the Islamic law. 

In March, after almost five years of firefights, U.S.-backed forces demolished the last IS stronghold in Baghuz, a small oasis town on the Euphrates River.
As a result, attention has turned to complex issues surrounding the extradition – or legal proceedings – for captured foreign fighters, as well as their wives and children. As it stands, most Western governments are not willing to take them back.
Giving a glimpse of life under IS
Aisyah said she never thought about returning home – not once – although she missed her family, especially her mother. But she feared for the lives of her two children after her husband died in early 2018 while fighting for IS.
It was her husband, a 34-year-old oil and gas technician whom she did not identify, who planned their travel to Syria, Aisyah said.
"He wanted to die as a Shahid (martyr)," she said.
Aisyah said she was eight months pregnant in 2016 when she entered Syria through Turkey with her 3-year-old daughter, after paying a Syrian guide U.S. $2,000 to smuggle them in.
With her husband having crossed into Syria with a group of men a week earlier, Aisyah and her daughter took the perilous journey with 15 women and children, including Indonesians, Americans and South Africans.
She recalled going through a five-hour trek through hills when they crossed Turkey into Syria.
"We departed Turkey after Asr (evening prayer) ... and reached the top of a hill at 10 p.m. We scaled down the steep hill to get to the other side. I had with me a small bag containing few clothes, diapers for my daughter and biscuits," she said.
"When we arrived, the guide fired a shot into the air and asked us to stop. A Syrian government soldier briefly detained us, but allowed us to leave," Aisyah said.

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Aisyah poses for a news photograph outside her mother's home in Terengganu, Malaysia, May 22, 2019. [S. Mahfuz/BenarNews]

At least 102 Malaysians had ventured to Syria and Iraq since 2013 in hopes of joining IS. Of that number, 40 have been killed in combat or other circumstances, including nine in suicide bombings, Malaysian security officials told BenarNews. Eleven have returned home, they said.
Out of 65 Malaysians who have been detained in Syria since the last IS bastion there fell, 39 have contacted police back home asking for help in repatriating them, Ayob Khan Mydin Pitchay, the chief of the Malaysian police's counterterrorist special branch, told journalists in Kuala Lumpur last weekend.
"They have contacted us and said they want to return to Malaysia. However, this involves a lot of parties and we need to gather them in one place," Ayob said, according to Bernama, the state news agency.
"We believe that this is only a small number of those who want to come back, and the number will increase," he added, as he broke the Ramadan fast with a group of former convicted militants during an annual dinner hosted by the Royal Malaysia Police.
During the interview in Terengganu, Aisyah said she and her family lived in the northwestern of Syrian town of Idlib, instead of their original destination Raqqa, a city on the northeastern bank of the Euphrates River. It was once a place of green parks and a thriving middle class.
They were the only Malaysian family in that community, she said. The rest were Indonesians.
"I heard there were Malaysians in Raqqa, but I also heard no one lived there anymore because when I arrived in Syria, that area was under attack. We were supposed to go there initially but we could not, so we settled in Idlib," she said.
Raqqa was then controlled by IS, while Idlib was under the Syrian government, she said. Raqqa is now a wasteland of shattered concrete and buildings warped from war.
"The city (Idlib) was fine, like any city. People go about with their daily lives. Except that you can see men and soldiers on the streets carrying weapons," she said.
Financial support from IS
Aisyah said her family received a monthly allowance of about U.S. $150 from IS.
"The amount would change every month, depending on the funds they have," she said. "Sometimes we used our own money."
Part of the money was used to pay for rent, the rest for food and groceries, she said, recalling how she changed apartments several times to make ends meet.
"The house rental for foreigners was expensive. Locals only pay half of the amount we paid. So we have to live with other families to cut the cost," she said.
Aisyah grew up eating rice, the most important staple food in Southeast Asia, but the grain was hard to find in war-ravaged Syria, forcing her to use wheat. Fruits and vegetables were easy to find, she said.
"It is also expensive to buy meat," she said, as she recalled that access to electricity was also limited, usually between 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. daily. None during daytime.
The sound of explosions and staccato bursts of gunfire scared her youngest child all the time, she said.
"When that happened, he would come running to me hug me and cried," she said. "The eldest was fine."
 
While it was relatively easier to enter IS-controlled areas when Aisyah came in, witnesses had reported to human rights groups that it was very dangerous to escape because the militant group had mined the roads and punished people who tried to flee.
Aisyah last saw her husband when he left home for a military training.
Her son was born in Syria. She managed to return home after emergency passports were issued for them by the Malaysian government as all their documents had been destroyed. Aisyah said her son is stateless as his birth was never recorded.
"No documents to show that he was born in Syria and we did not register his birth," she said.
A police source said it would take a longer time for Aisyah's son to get his citizenship, even though his mother was a Malaysian.
"It's a matter of documentation. Tedious and long process," the source said. 

Two female police officers were present while BenarNews was interviewing Aisyah. They did not interfere.

Eight months since her return home, life is now back to "normal," Aisyah said, referring to her village life, where she now wakes up to the sounds of chirping birds, instead of explosions.
But even while surrounded by her loving family members, including her mother, she said she had a heavy heart leaving Syria.
"There was a sense of regret," she said. "I did not expect that I would be returning home."


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BENARNEWS- A Malaysian court convicted a former taxi driver Tuesday on three counts of supporting the Islamic State (IS) terror group, including financially aiding recruiter Muhammad Wanndy Mohamed Jedi in 2016, and sentenced him to 10 years in prison.
Kuala Lumpur High Court Judge Sofian Abdul Razak ruled that Nor Nizam Panijan, 40, had failed to raise reasonable doubt.
"Let it be recorded that the court found the accused guilty on all three charges," the judge said in handing down the decision.
Wearing a purple shirt and white Muslim skullcap, Nor Nizam appeared grim and silent as the judge read out the verdict – a clear change from his cheerful demeanor earlier when his wife and two daughters greeted him at the court.
In the first charge, Nor Nizam was found guilty of providing support to a terrorist group by pledging allegiance to IS between March 30 and April 2, 2016, through a Gagak Hitam (Black Crow) chat group on Telegram that involved Wanndy.
Gagak Hitam members are believed to be responsible for the first terrorist attack claimed by IS on Malaysian soil. Wanndy, who was killed in a drone strike in Syria in 2017, masterminded the grenade blast that injured eight patrons at a Kuala Lumpur area nightclub in June 2016 and took credit via social media.
Nor Nizam argued that he was not aware of the gravity of his pledge of loyalty and claimed to have declared it to not be removed from the group because he was interested in following events in Syria.
"According to the accused, he did not fully understand the meaning of the pledge and assumed it was a support to Islam in general and not for terrorism," Sofian said as he recounted Nor Nizam's arguments before ruling that the defense was not believable.
"The accused not only declared allegiance but also contributed funds, and asked questions about Syria and even asked about how to go about migrating to the country," the judge said. "Therefore the court agrees that the accused's arguments were merely denials."
For the second charge, Nor Nizam was found guilty of willfully transferring 70 ringgit (U.S. $16.70) and 20 ringgit ($4.75) to two bank accounts owned by Mohd Haniffa Syedul Akbar and Bukhori Che Noor respectively, who served as proxies to Wanndy.
Defense attorney Syahredzan Johan argued that his client thought he was donating money to war victims in Syria and only Mohd. Haniffa and Bukhori knew it was being channeled to IS.
The judge cited evidence that Wanndy himself had told the group to contribute money to him because the cell's finances were running dry.
"This month's contributions have all burned up ... these contributions are for our use, not to be saved. This is for good, God will reward greatly," Sofian said, reading from a chat transcript.
"Therefore it is clear that everyone in the group agreed and were demanded to make contributions to the cause," he added.
Under the third charge Nor Nizam was found guilty of storing 21 videos and two photos containing IS-related materials on his smartphone.
Justice Sofian said this charge was the simplest for the prosecution to prove.
"In my view, it is difficult for the accused to prove the photos and videos are not in his phone. No clear explanation by the accused can deny that," he said.
Syahredzan asked the court to give leniency and consider this as Nor Nizam's first offense.
"He is also employed as a taxi driver, earning 3,000 to 4,000 ringgit ($716 to $954) monthly and has two daughters," Syahredzan said.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Azlina Rasdi, meanwhile, asked for a harsh sentence to serve as a deterrence for others.
Sofian then sentenced Nor Nizam to 10 years for the first offense, six for the second and three for the third to run concurrently from his August 2016 arrest.
In April, the Royal Malaysia Police said they had arrested 26 people suspected of involvement in terrorist or IS-related activities in the country to date. Of those taken into custody, five were Malaysians, 13 were from the Philippines, six were from Egypt, one from Pakistani and one from Tunisia.
Earlier this month, police reported arresting seven IS-linked militants who allegedly planned attacks and assassinations to avenge the death of a Malay Muslim firefighter during a riot at a local Hindu temple last November.


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BENARNEWS- Malaysia on Tuesday announced a change of leadership at the anti-corruption commission that has been at the forefront of the first-ever prosecution of a former prime minister, and in another first it appointed a woman, lawyer Latheefa Koya, to be the agency's new chief.
The prime minister's office issued a press statement on the eve of Eid celebrations stating that Latheefa would serve as chief commissioner of the MACC for two years, retroactive to June 1.
"The appointment is among the steps toward reform in government institutions," the statement said.
A graduate of University of London law school, Latheefa, 45, co-founded human rights watchdog Lawyers for Liberty in 2011and served as a central committee member of Anwar Ibrahim's People's Justice Party (PKR) from 2003-2018.
Her clients over the years included Anwar in his losing legal battle against sodomy charges, and political cartoonist Zunar, who faced sedition charges for tweets criticizing Anwar's jailing.

The prime minister's office said Malaysia's king had consented to a request by outgoing MACC chief Mohd Shukri Abdull to have his two-year term shortened so he could retire. Shukri served MACC for 32 years.
Shukri was appointed to head the agency on May 17, 2018, days after Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad's Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition formed the new government following its stunning upset of then-Prime Minister Najib Razak's Barisan Nasional coalition.
Contacted by BenarNews, Shukri said he had promised Mahathir to serve for one year to investigate financial scandals involving 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) and its subsidiary, SRC International.
"My mission has been completed. MACC is on the right track and the team is united to fight corruption," he said, without commenting on his successor.
Najib, his wife, Rosmah Mansor, and former government officials have been charged with crimes linked to what U.S. prosecutors called "kleptocracy at its worst." Malaysian and U.S. prosecutors allege that U.S. $4.5 billion (18.3 billion ringgit) were diverted to accounts held by Najib and others from 1MDB and SRC.
Free from politics?
Latheefa's appointment drew mixed reactions because of her association with PKR.
"The appointment should have been discussed with us, but we didn't know. MACC is supposed to be free from politics, but now we have a political party member heading it," Parliamentary Special Select Committee (PSSC) chairman William Leong said.
In a tweet, Latheefa said she had addressed the issue.
"Thanks for the advice. But I have already sent in my resignation with immediate effect as an ordinary member of PKR ... upon being told of my impending appointment as MACC chief," she tweeted.
Fortify Rights legal director Eric Paulsen, her colleague at Lawyers for Liberty, tweeted a congratulatory message.
"[H]er appointment sends a powerful message that the government is serious in eradicating corruption and abuse of power. It is no more business as usual, big fish or small fish, Malaysia must be corruption-free," he said.
Political analyst Mohd Azizuddin Mohd Sani of Universiti Utara Malaysia said Latheefa had proven her credibility.
"She is well known as a lawyer for PKR and as an activist. She would be able to perform well and there isn't an issue about her credibility. But there are concerns as she is a political party member and not from MACC itself," he said when contacted by BenarNews. "Perhaps this is part of the strategy to implement the government's reforms."


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BENARNEWS- Malaysia said Friday it would receive a U.S. $19.3 million package of American-made aerial drones through a Washington aid program, but underscored that it would collaborate with any country, including China, to improve its security and maritime intelligence-gathering capabilities.
Kuala Lumpur is to acquire 12 ScanEagle drones through the U.S. government's Maritime Security Initiative (MSI), the Malaysian Ministry of Defense said in a statement.
"As a maritime nation, it is essential for Malaysia to have intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities to monitor its strategic waterways in the Strait of Malacca, South China Sea and Sulu Sea," the ministry said.
"This program is fully funded by the United States and did not incur any cost to Malaysia," it said, adding it expected to take delivery of the first six ScanEagles by mid-November.
The drones, to be built by Insitu, a subsidiary of the Boeing Co., are part of a package of 34 ScanEagles that the U.S. is supplying to Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia and Vietnam, according to contract information released by the Pentagon last week.
Production and delivery of all 34 drones is scheduled for completion by March 2022, the U.S. Defense Department (DoD) said.
On May 31, the Pentagon announced that it had awarded a contract to Insitu to build the drones for the four Southeast Asian countries. The total contract is worth $47.9 million, the DoD said via a contract announcement on its website.
"This order combines purchases for" the governments of Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia "under the Foreign Military Sales program," the announcement said. Under the contract, the Philippines and Indonesia will each get eight ScanEagles, while Vietnam will be supplied with six.
The program "is a form of security assistance authorized by the Arms Export Control Act," according to information from the U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA).
According to the Malaysian defense ministry, the United States "through its Maritime Security Initiative (MSI), provided assistance in the form of assets and training to friendly nations including Malaysia to enhance the Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA) in the Southeast Asian region."
The initiative, framed under the National Defense Authorization Act, aims to build up the capacity of American partner nations in the South China Sea region. The act specifically targets five countries – Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam – for assistance and training paid for by American funding, according to information from the DSCA.
"Aside from the Malaysian Armed Forces, other enforcement agencies will also benefit from the MSI program to enhance their capabilities to monitor the maritime region and information sharing among the enforcement agencies and the armed forces," the ministry said.
The ScanEagle drones will have a temporary role in helping to carry out surveillance of Malaysia's waterways until the government procures two patrol aircraft and three unmanned aircraft through its 12th Malaysian plan, defense officials said.
The statement from Malaysia Ministry of Defense also appeared to be carefully worded to not create a perception that Malaysia was siding with the U.S. on the hot-button issue of the South China Sea, amid tensions between Beijing and Washington in the disputed maritime region.
Beijing claims most of the mineral-rich sea region, including areas that reach the shores of its smaller neighbors. China has been expanding and militarizing structures it built in the sea, despite earlier agreements to halt all construction activities. The Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia, Vietnam and Taiwan also have territorial claims in the strategic waterway.
"In line with Malaysia's stance to not pick sides and to build friendly relations with everyone, Malaysia welcomes defense cooperation with all interested parties, including the U.S. and China, to ensure the safety and stability of the Southeast Asian region," the Malaysian ministry's statement concluded.


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BENARNEWS- Malaysia's former police chief defended his department for not acting more swiftly in investigating mass graves at human-smuggling camps on the country's northern border in 2015, as he testified for the first time Monday before a government commission on the macabre discovery.
Investigators first needed to determine if the crime scene holding the graves of Rohingya and Bangladeshis was inside Malaysian territory or on the Thai side of the frontier, Khalid Abu Bakar told the Royal Commission of Inquiry. However, an ex-police commander in the area had testified earlier that he was ordered to stay away from the site in the jungle near Wang Kelian – a border town in Perlis state – after sending a report about the discovery in January 2015.
"We couldn't confirm if the location was in Malaysia or Thailand. So I instructed Zul Aznam to find out, because we didn't want to act beyond our border, or it would be against the law," Khalid, the former Police Inspector-General testified, referring to then-Perlis police chief Zul Aznam Haron.
"So my instruction then was to get more details about the discovery and who was involved. That was why I told him to 'hold on,'" he told the commission in the nation's administrative capital, Putrajaya.
Khalid's testimony came after a 121-page joint report by Malaysia's Human Rights Commission and Fortify Rights in March claimed there were gaps in the probe and possible obstruction of justice after authorities discovered the mass graves, from where 139 bodies were exhumed.
Until Khalid's testimony on Monday, it was unclear why Malaysian police only publicized the discovery of a cluster of abandoned jungle camps in the border town more than three months later, days after news that the Thai police announced that they had unearthed 36 bodies from shallow graves on their side of the border.
Former Chief Justice Arifin Zakaria, the commission head, pressed Khalid to explain further why it took so long for police to confirm whether the area was within Malaysian territory.
"The process to identify the area could take merely an hour or a day. When we find something, we must cordon off the area and go to the crime scene to gather evidence," Arifin told Khalid.
"However, when you told them to hold on, they never went into the site."
Khalid replied that the police needed to be careful when conducting their probe as the issue would have diplomatic repercussions with neighboring Thailand.
During his testimony, Khalid also admitted that the discovery of the mass graves exposed Malaysia's border security weaknesses, which he said could be improved by deploying more personnel and improving intelligence sharing with Thailand.
In April, retired Deputy Superintendent Sivanganam (also known as Thirumugan Sathisivam) told the Royal Commission that he was instructed by his superiors to stay away from the camp. Sivanganam was ground commander for the Malaysian police's General Operations Force in the region when the jungle camp was discovered.
"I was forbidden from returning to that area and when the unit was redeployed, I was ordered to sit out," he told the Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI), which was formed by the government of Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad in early March and given six months to file a report into whether the previous government had carried out a thorough investigation. Mahathir's government came to power through a general election in May 2018.
Khalid, who retired the same year as the nation's police chief, was the 47th witness called to testify in the public hearing.

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A member of the Malaysian General Operation Force stands guard at an abandoned human-trafficking camp found outside Wang Kelian in Malaysia, May 26, 2015. [AP]

The discoveries of the mass graves and 28 jungle camps, where human smugglers kept people captive while reportedly extorting payments from their families, shocked Malaysians. In Thailand, the government has since tried 102 people and convicted 62 of them, including a former three-star army general.
In Malaysia, authorities under the previous government arrested 12 police officers and several foreign nationals. However, in 2017, then-Home Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi told reporters that the officers had been released from custody due to lack of evidence.
Four foreigners – two Myanmar nationals, a Bangladeshi and a Thai – were convicted on human trafficking charges and remain jailed. Authorities said most of the victims who were killed were members of Myanmar's stateless Rohingya minority and some were from Bangladesh.
At the time of the discovery of the camps, authorities detained 38 men believed to be "undocumented foreign migrants." Authorities later found out that the migrants were not linked to human traffickers.
In Monday's testimony, Khalid said that although the matter was never brought to the National Security Council, he said he had notified then-Prime Minister Najib Razak and former Home Minister Ahmad. Najib and Ahmad ordered the police to get more information about the syndicate, Khalid testified.
"The prime minister in particular was very concerned if our authorities were involved, because several Thai authorities were detained in their country," Khalid said. "But until today, we are still unable to prove that our men had any involvement."


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BENARNEWS- Unidentified gunmen snatched 10 fishermen believed to be Filipinos in waters off eastern Malaysia's Sabah state on Tuesday, security officials said of the latest abductions in a region where Islamic State-linked militants have carried out deadly kidnappings.
No group had claimed responsibility and officials said it was not immediately clear if Abu Sayyaf, a militant group based in the nearby southern Philippines, was involved.
"Yes, we were informed that they spoke in the Malay language, but we could not ascertain if they were local bandits or have connections with the Abu Sayyaf," Sabah police chief Omar Mammah told BenarNews.
The fishermen, whose ages ranged from 17 to 60, were believed to be from a clan of sea gypsies living in the southern Philippines, Omar said.
The victims were taken from a pair of fishing boats carrying 16 fishermen off Sabah's Lahad Datu district, after they were approached by gunmen on two other boats, Philippine and Malaysian security officials told BenarNews.
The gunmen, who were armed with M-16 assault rifles, boarded the fishing vessels, confiscated the fishermen's documents and left with the 10 victims, authorities said.
The abductors sailed toward Sitangkai island in the southern Philippines, which is a 15-minute boat ride from Lahad Datu's Tambisan waters, a Sabah police source told BenarNews.
Officials said they were still trying to determine why the gunmen did not take the six other fishermen, who reported the kidnappings after being rescued by the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency.
Earlier on Tuesday, Mazlan Mansor, Malaysia's deputy police inspector-general, said that the 10 had no identification documents and their boats had sailed without a permit during a curfew.
"They had no identification. We believe they are not Malaysians," Mazlan told reporters in Selangor state. "So far, we have not been contacted by any party or by any group to claim responsibility."
The abductions took place a week after Malaysian police chief Abdul Hamid Bador warned in an interview with the Bernama state news agency that Abu Sayyaf still posed a security threat. The United States has listed the group as a foreign terrorist organization.
The Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) is the smallest of several armed groups that operate in the restive Philippine south, but considered the most brutal one. It is notorious for abducting foreigners, including citizens of neighboring Southeast Asian nations.
Three years ago, the Abu Sayyaf beheaded two Canadian hostages and a German captive after their governments refused to pay ransoms for their release.
One of Abu Sayyaf's leaders, Isnilon Hapilon, was later named the head of the Islamic State branch in the Philippine south. He was killed in October 2017 after he led militants in a five-month battle with government forces during the siege of the southern Philippine city of Marawi.
Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines began trilateral maritime patrols in June 2017 in response to a spate of kidnappings targeting fishing trawlers and tugboats in Sulu and Sulawesi seas by the Abu Sayyaf.
Last month, Abu Sayyaf killed Dutch hostage Ewold Horn, a 59-year-old wildlife photographer, during a firefight in the southern Philippines that also left at least six militants and eight soldiers dead, the Philippine military said.
Tuesday's abductions occurred barely days after the Sabah government announced that its security forces would be highly prepared along its water border to foil intrusions and cross-border crime.
"We will give confidence to [tourists]," Chief Minister Mohd Shafie Apdal, who is also Sabah Security Committee chairman, told reporters. "We do not want an impression from outsiders that Sabah is not a safe place."


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BENARNEWS- A government commission probing the 2015 discovery of mass graves of Rohingya and Bangladeshis at human-smuggling camps along Malaysia's border with Thailand said Tuesday it had concluded with testimony after calling 48 witnesses over 17 days of hearings since April.
The Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) would spend the next few months preparing a report on what happened in the camps near Wang Kelian, a border town in Perlis state, chairman Arifin Zakaria announced.
"We have more or less exhausted whatever is available to us and I don't think we will be calling any other witnesses," Arifin told reporters on Tuesday, a day after Khalid Abu Bakar, the Malaysian national police chief at the time of the gruesome discoveries in the jungle, appeared before the panel.
"The RCI is one of the methods for us to prepare the report, by gathering information from witnesses who had knowledge of what actually transpired," said Arifin, a former Malaysian chief justice. "After today, we will have meetings to prepare the report, which will be presented to the king in early September with our recommendations."
He said police did their best to assist the panel, but he did not know if the report would be released to the public once the commission handed it to the king.
"It is up to the government's discretion. We will forward the report to the officials," Arifin said.
While the panel was satisfied with the testimony received, members could not question Thai witnesses, he said. The camps and graves were near the northern border with Thailand, where similar discoveries were made in 2015.

"I would like to get information from witnesses in Thailand, but there was no cooperation from them. It is quite difficult and we do not have the power to summon them," Arifin said.
The final witness, police Superintendent Woon Tan Seng testified on Tuesday that victims and witnesses had been reluctant to come forward, hindering the investigation, according to national news service Bernama. The deaths at the camps could have been caused by illness, he also said, noting the conditions in the jungle and lack of food.
"Admittedly some witnesses said they were whipped. There were bruises and bandages but the injuries in my view were not the cause of the deaths," Bernama quoted him as saying.
139 mass graves
RCI Deputy Chairman Norian Mai, a former police inspector-general, said the panel could recommend that authorities re-open investigations into the case.
"However, this would depend on our findings and discussions with other panel members," he said.
In January 2015, Malaysian authorities found 139 mass graves and 28 abandoned camps scattered near the rocky hills along the Thai border at Bukit Wang Burma in Wang Kelian, but exhumed the bodies four months later.
More than 100 skeletal remains, believed to be those of member of Myanmar's stateless Rohingya minority, were found in the graves. Some of the bodies belonged to undocumented migrants from Bangladesh.
In a 121-page joint report filed in March by Malaysia's Human Rights Commission and legal activist group Fortify Rights, the government at the time was criticized for the delayed investigation and a lack of action against the human smuggler who ran the camps.
Authorities under Malaysia's previous government arrested 12 police officers and several foreign nationals. However, in 2017, then-Home Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi told reporters that the officers had been released from custody because of a lack of evidence.
Four foreigners – two Myanmar nationals, a Bangladeshi and a Thai – were convicted on human trafficking charges and remain jailed. Human traffickers apparently held Rohingya and others captive in the camps while extorting payments from their families.
In Thailand, the government tried 102 people and convicted 62 of them, including a former three-star army general on charges linked to human trafficking as a result of discoveries there.
Testimony details
Testifying on Monday, Khalid Abu Bakar, who served as inspector general of police when the graves were discovered on Jan. 19, 2015, defended police for not acting more swiftly after the camps were found.
"We couldn't confirm if the location was in Malaysia or Thailand. So I instructed Zul Aznam to find out, because we didn't want to act beyond our border, or it would be against the law," said Khalid, the former Police Inspector-General testified, referring to then-Perlis police chief Zul Aznam Haron, who testified earlier.
The panel previously heard from state police Battalion 3 Company B commander Joeking M. Marian Anthony who said he and his men were ordered to destroy all photos from the site, according to media reports. It also heard from a special forces member, Mat Ten, who discovered the camps on Jan. 19, 2015.
In addition, several witnesses from the Police Force special branch testified behind closed doors.
The panel, especially Arifin and Norian, occasionally clashed with witnesses especially when focusing on the lapse in time between the discovery of the camps and the reporting on corpses being found four months later.
Malaysia's Pakatan Harapan government, which came to power through elections in May 2018, appointed the seven-member RCI in March, saying that the graves and camps at Wang Kelian needed to be investigated more closely because "many people were not satisfied" with the probe carried out under the previous government.
When Home Minister Muhyiddin Yassin introduced the RCI panel three months ago, he assured the public that Pakatan was taking the Wang Kelian case to the highest level, and the panel would look into allegations of cover-up during the older investigation.
The commission was being formed, he said at the time, so that in the future, "no one can say that they are not satisfied and question Malaysia's commitment on human rights."
"So even though it is late, it is never too late to get to the bottom of this," Muhyiddin said at the time.


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BENARNEWS- Australian rare-earths producer Lynas Corp said Wednesday its plan to move a portion of its ore processing plant out of Malaysia by 2025 addresses conditions imposed by Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad for continuing operations in the Southeast Asian country.
Replying to questions from BenarNews, the company also reiterated that Malaysian workers had been exposed to radiation well below internationally accepted limits, amid lingering controversy over the safety of radioactive waste at its plant in Malaysia's Pahang state.
"We announced on 21 May 2019 that we intend to relocate first-stage processing cracking and leaching – from Malaysia to Western Australia by 2025," Lynas said in a statement. "This addresses the new conditions proposed by the Malaysian Prime Minister."
The company's confirmation about relocating part of the plant came as a ministry spokeswoman in Kuala Lumpur said the country's energy and environment minister Yeo Bee Yin had delayed a planned June 20 visit to Australia.
Yeo had planned to meet in Perth with Bill Johnston, Western Australia state's minister for mines, on Thursday, reports said.
Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamed in April said the government would renew Lynas' operating license – set to expire in September – on condition it process radioactive ores prior to bringing them into the country, news portal The Edge reported at the time.
Speaking to reporters in Tokyo in late May, Mahathir said his government would continue to push Lynas to remove radioactive waste from Malaysia, but also look for other solutions.
"We are going to talk to them but if we fail, of course we need to do something with the raw material. Maybe spread it somewhere so as to not have concentrated radioactive material in one place," he said. "We will allow Lynas to carry on or else we are going to lose a very big investment from Australia."
Lynas, the world's largest rare-earth producer outside of China, mines the minerals out of Mount Weld, a collapsed volcano in Australia, and ships them to be refined to a sprawling industrial complex in Kuantan, capital of Malaysia's Pahang state. It employs more than 650 people in Malaysia and Australia.
Refining is done on a large scale in only two places: Malaysia and China, which has threatened to restrict the supply of rare earth minerals to the United States.
Activists said that while Lynas' U.S. $800 million plant in Kuantan broke China's near-monopoly on producing the prized elements, the processing also left behind low-level radioactive waste.
"The main issue is the disposal of waste material, which needs to be resolved urgently. If both governments cannot find a solution to this problem, then the industry will need to be phased out," Randolph Jeremiah, vice president of Environmental Protection Society, a Malaysian NGO, recently told BenarNews.
'Low Risk'
Rare earths are not actually very rare and are even more abundant in the Earth's crust than copper, lead, gold and platinum, according to a U.S. Congressional Service (CSR) report.
But rare earths are not concentrated enough to make them easily exploitable economically, and refining them takes lots of corrosive chemicals and generates huge amounts of residue, scientists said.
Rare earths – minerals such as cerium, lanthanum and neodymium – are used in electronics and smartphones, wind turbines and electric vehicles, jet-fighter engines, Tomahawk cruise missiles, space-based satellites and communication systems.
The U.S. imports some $160 billion of rare earth materials from China, which controls 80 percent of the production. The ongoing trade conflict between Washington and Beijing has spotlighted the strategic significance and defense application of rare earth elements.
In its statement, Lynas said it welcomed Mahathir's comments acknowledging the importance of its Malaysia operations.
It explained that one of the by-products of rare-earths processing is WLP, an iron phosphate that is a Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material (NORM).
"WLP residue is classified as very low-level waste under the International Atomic Energy Agency classification scheme," it said.
Radiation exposure received by its Malaysia workers had been less than 2 millisieverts (mSv) per year, "well below the internationally accepted exposure limits," the firm said, referring to the 20-mSv threshold advised by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
In December 2018, the Pakatan Harapan government's review of Lynas Malaysia found that its operations are "low risk, compliant with relevant regulations and that residue storage facilities are operated in a proper manner," the statement claimed.
"As it is, there is no legal reason to shut it down," Amlir Ayat, vice president of EcoKnights Malaysia, said of the plant. "However, there needs to be frequent and appropriate monitoring of the operations by the local and international bodies to ensure it is continuously safe."
Another environmentalist, Shariffa Sabrina Syed Akil, told BenarNews that Mahathir's government had erred by allowing Lynas to continue to operate in the Southeast Asian country.
"We know a smart country like Australia won't harm its citizens," Shariffa said. "But Malaysia wanted more money and development by risking us with hazardous materials."


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BENARNEWS- Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad on Thursday said better evidence was needed before Russia can be held responsible for downing Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, rejecting the work of international investigators, including one from his own country.
Mahathir said the investigation was biased from the beginning in its efforts to determine how 298 passengers and crew were killed over Ukrainian airspace five years ago. On Wednesday, investigators had announced that three Russians and a Ukrainian would be tried for murder for their roles in shooting down the plane with a Russian-made missile.
"We are very unhappy because from the very beginning, it became a political issue on how Russia was accused of wrongdoing. Even before they examined it, they already said Russia, and now they say they have proof," Mahathir said on Thursday. "So, it is very difficult for us to accept that.
"We want proof of guilt that Russia did it. But so far there is no proof, only hearsay," he told reporters in Putrajaya, the seat of Malaysia's government.
On Wednesday, Malaysian Solicitor General Hanafiah bin Zakaria told reporters in the Netherlands that the decision to charge was made based on an extensive investigation and legal research.
Hanafiah serves on the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) with representatives from Australia, Belgium, the Netherlands and the Ukraine.
"The objective of the JIT is to complete investigations, gather evidence or interview witnesses for the purpose of prosecuting the wrongdoers," he said. "Malaysia's stand is to go by the rule of law and due process. So we are with JIT with regard to the findings."
At the same press conference, Dutch prosecutor Fred Westerbeke said the investigation established Russian involvement in the downing of the Malaysian plane.
MH17 was shot down on July 17, 2014, over territory held by pro-Russia separatists in eastern Ukraine as it was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. Russia seized Ukrainian territory on the Crimea Peninsula in 2014 and is said to support the separatists in the country.
Westerbeke said investigators determined the Russian government had made available the BUK Telar missile used to shoot down the aircraft
"We have all the materials that can substantiate that," he said. "It also means, if you look back, you can establish that, after July 17, 2014, the Russian Federation has not disclosed anything about what happened. It is a slap in the face of all the relatives of the victims and the bereaved."
JIT announced that four suspects – Igor Girkin, a former colonel with the Russian Federal Security Service; Sergey Dubinsky and Oleg Pulatov, who worked for the Russian Military Intelligence Service; and Leonid Kharchenko, a former Ukrainian military commander, would face murder charges, and that the trial would take place in March 2020 in the Netherlands.
The four are likely to be tried in absentia as Russia and the Ukraine are not expected to extradite the suspects.
Foreign ministry statement
Malaysia exports palm oil to Russia, and Mahathir asked Putin for his country's help in November 2018 in maintaining Malaysia's fleet of Russian planes, according to media reports.
Four months earlier, the Malaysian defense minister announced that only four of 28 Russian-built fighter jets in its air force fleet can fly.
Asked if his stance on the JIT was due to the country's ties to Russia, Mahathir said "No, no. That is different," according to The Star.
Prior to Mahathir's comments, the Malaysian foreign ministry released a brief statement that it remained "committed to the JIT process" while adding, "conclusions must be based on evidence, and not be politically motivated."
The widow of MH17 co-pilot Ahmad Hakimi Hanapi called Mahathir's comments "hurtful."
"It was actually very hurtful for him to make that statement. The work put in for the investigation is very extensive. You can't begin to imagine how detailed it is," Asmaa Aljuned told BenarNews on Thursday.
"You don't know the amount of data they had to go through ... it took them five years to do this," she said. "I have utmost respect and gratitude for the JIT."

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Doubts about investigation
Mahathir had expressed doubts about the MH17 investigation in May at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan in Tokyo.
"We know the missile that brought down the plane is a Russian-type missile, but it could also be made in Ukraine," Mahathir said at the time, according to Malaysian national news agency Bernama. "You need strong evidence to show it was fired by the Russians."
The Russian government agreed with Mahathir's concerns as it lambasted JIT's findings.
"Who allowed flights over a military zone? Was it Russia? No. Where were the fighter jets?" Russian President Vladimir Putin told reporters on Thursday, according to Agence France-Presse.
"There are lots of questions there. But they are not being answered. They've simply chosen once and for all and picked the guilty party. Such an approach to the investigation does not suit us," Putin said, echoing Mahathir's statement.
Russia's Foreign Affairs Ministry said the Russian government had provided evidence that the missile belonged to the Ukraine and that video clips supporting JIT conclusions were fabricated.
"Moreover, Russia has suggested working together from the outset. Instead, international investigators excluded Russia from full participation in the JIT, reducing Russian efforts to a secondary role," the ministry said in a statement obtained by BenarNews.


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BENARNEWS- A North Korean residing in Malaysia for a decade and involved in business dealings with China has been arrested and faces possible extradition to the U.S. on charges of alleged money laundering involving luxury goods, officials and sources said.
Mun Chol Myong, 54, has been detained by the Malaysian authorities since May 14, and was denied bail by a local magistrate on Monday, according to local reports. The government's application to extradite him to the United States is to be heard in court on July 4.
Mun was arrested under the Extradition Act and a mutual legal assistance agreement between Malaysia and the U.S., a source in Malaysian intelligence said.
"The FBI made the request to the attorney general so we went and made a provisional arrest," the source told BenarNews. "The North Korean citizen has the right to challenge his extradition in court but normally judges would rule in favor of the country that is making the extradition request."
In Washington on Tuesday, both the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Department of Justice, which oversees the bureau, declined through the same spokesperson to respond to a BenarNews request for confirmation that the United States was trying to extradite Mun.
The source in Malaysian intelligence added that the charges related to money laundering and a violation of the U.N. Security Council's sanctions against North Korea. The sanctions aim to deprive Pyongyang of resources that could be funneled into its nuclear energy and nuclear weapons program.
Mun and his family stayed in an apartment in a suburban area southwest of Kuala Lumpur while he had business dealings in China, the source added.
"His wife is the participant of the MM2H and a cancer survivor. The person of interest (Mun) always flew in and out of the country as he had business in China. We do not know the nature of his business there," the source said, referring to the Malaysia My Second Home program. It allows foreigners who fulfill certain criteria to live in Malaysia along with a spouse, unmarried children younger than 21 and parents who are older than 60.
Mun's defense lawyer, Jagjit Singh, said he expected his client to be extradited to face charges in the U.S.
"Certainly," the lawyer told BenarNews.
Singh said he had not seen charging documents and did not know the details of the charge filed against Mun other than it involved money laundering.
"The information has just been received by the Home Ministry and has not been sent to the Attorney General's chambers and therefore not served on my firm as solicitors for the North Korean Embassy," he said.
Following his arrest, Mun was remanded to a 60-day custody which expires July 14, according to the state news service Bernama.
In court on Monday, Singh and fellow defense attorney Akberdin Abdul Kader asked the magistrate to allow Mun to be allowed bail, citing that he was in poor health, his wife was stricken with cancer, and that they also had two children.
For their part, deputy public prosecutors Faizul Aswad Masri and Lim Ju Vynn requested that Mun be denied bail, stating he had received medical treatment while in prison. Faizul also said that the transnational nature of the case should be taken into consideration.
"As the case has to do with international matters, unlike normal criminal courts, which give the respondent the right for bail," he said according to Bernama.
"The United States has an unstable diplomatic relationship with North Korea and, hence, there could be a reason for him being a flight risk," Magistrate Noorasyikin Sahat said, according to The Edge, a local publication.
Last month, the Malaysian government handed over former Goldman Sachs employee Roger Ng to the United States where he is to be tried on charges stemming from a corruption scandal tied to the alleged theft of billions of dollars from 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), a Malaysian sovereign wealth fund.
Ng, who is facing charges in Malaysia and the U.S., was handed over to allow for U.S. prosecution to proceed before he is returned and tried in a Malaysian court. On May 6, Ng pleaded not guilty to U.S. charges and was granted a $1 million cash bail.
He was placed under house arrest.


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BENARNEWS- Facing new accusations of corruption, ex-Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi pleaded not guilty Wednesday to seven counts alleging he took bribes from a firm that processed visa applications from nationals of China and other nations.
Prosecutors allege that Zahid, 66, received millions of dollars in bribes while at the deputy prime minister's residence between late March 2017 and early March 2018. He appeared calm and nodded when the charges were read out before Judge Azura Alwi at the Kuala Lumpur Sessions Court.
"The court has set a bail at 200,000 ringgit (U.S. $48,300)," the judge announced while declaring the case would resume on July 31.
The latest charges brought the total against Zahid to 54 – and officials expect to file another 33 charges on Thursday related to more alleged kickbacks from Ultra Kirana.
Defense attorney Kitson Foong told the court that his client was aware of the additional charges and asked for reasonable bail as Zahid paid 2 million ringgit (U.S. $483,000) to be released on the previous charges.
The latest charges were filed under the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) Act of 2009. They carry a maximum prison term of 20 years for each charge and a fine not less than five times the amount of the alleged bribes.
In the new case against him, Zahid is accused of receiving kickbacks from Ultra Kirana Sdn Bhd that totaled 4.2 million Singaporean dollars (12.8 million ringgit) to extend its contract with the Malaysian government.
Ultra Kirana was the only company allowed to process and approve visa applications by Chinese, Indians and nationals from a few other countries through Malaysia's Electronic Travel Registration and Information (eENTRI), according to the New Straits Times newspaper.
Najib appears in court
Zahid, who wore a gold-motif black batik shirt to court, was seen shaking hands with his former boss, ex-Prime Minister Najib Razak, before the hearing began. Afterwards, Zahid made no comments to reporters as he left the courthouse.
Najib faces his own set of criminal charges stemming from a corruption scandal linked to the alleged theft of billions of dollars from the state development fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), which he founded 10 years ago.
Zahid succeeded Najib as leader of the United Malays National Organization (UMNO) following the political party's 2018 electoral defeat to a coalition led by Mahathir Mohamad. Zahid himself took a leave from the UMNO leadership role late last year after more than a dozen of its members abandoned the party.

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Malaysia Anti-Corruption Commission chief Latheefa Koya speaks to reporters at the Kuala Lumpur Sessions Court June 26, 2019. [Hadi Azmi/BenarNews]

Among those in court on Wednesday were newly appointed MACC Commissioner Latheefa Koya, MACC Deputy Chief Commissioner Azam Baki and about 20 UMNO supporters.
Latheefa confirmed that Zahid would face another 33 charges on Thursday related to additional alleged kickbacks totaling 47 million ringgit (U.S. $11.3 million) from UKSB.
"This is not a common corruption case because it involves country's leaders at the time of the case. The amount involved is also very high so this case is of public interest," Latheefa told reporters.

Latheefa said Ultra Kirana was not off the hook.
"We will let the government take action against the company," she said, adding that MACC had identified witnesses to make the case against the firm.
Zahid previously was charged with 47 criminal counts – 12 of criminal breach of trust, eight of bribery and 27 of money laundering.
He allegedly misappropriated funds from the Akal Budi Foundation, a charity which gave money to religious schools and provided students with grants, to pay off debts that he and his wife accumulated.


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BENARNEWS- Malaysia on Wednesday opened a fresh probe into whether state agents were involved in the disappearances of a Christian clergyman and a Shia Muslim activist, but relatives of the missing said the new task force could be biased because several of its members were police.
The six-member panel headed by former High Court Judge Rahim Uda will look into recent findings by the National Human Rights Commission (Suhakam) that Pastor Raymond Koh and activist Amri Che Mat were, "on a balance of probabilities," the victims of enforced disappearances carried out by police officers.
As he introduced the task force members to the media on Wednesday, Home Minister Muhyiddin Yassin said the government viewed Suhakam's allegations against the Royal Malaysia Police, particularly those linking members of its Special Branch to the men's disappearances, as a serious matter.
"The report made by Suhakam has created a lot of perception issues," the minister told reporters in Putrajaya, Malaysia's administrative capital.
"The Home Ministry views the findings by the commission on their disappearance seriously, and thus the need for a detailed evaluation of the report in the interest of fairness to all the parties," Muhyiddin said.
The task force will be independent but the presence of senior police officials on it did not represent a conflict of interest, the minister said, because "the appointments of police top brass were not of those implicated in the [Suhakam] report," according to Bernama, the state news agency.
The task force has a six-month deadline to complete the investigation and present its report to the home minister, who will then share it with the cabinet.
When it issued its report on April 3, the parliament-backed rights commission urged the government to create a task force to investigate what it declared were "enforced disappearances" in the cases of Amri and Koh, who vanished in November 2016 and February 2017, respectively.
Two days later, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said that his government would launch a new probe into the disappearances of the two men. Police had earlier denied allegations that officers were behind their disappearances, but police investigations into the cases remain open.
The other five members of the task force are: Mokhtar Mohd Noor, former head of the Malaysian police department's legal office; Zamri Yahya, director of the police's Integrity and Standard Compliance unit; Muhammad Bukhari Ab. Hamid, operations director for the Enforcement Agency Integrity Commission, a government body; Mohd Russaini Idrus, division secretary for the Police Commission; and Mohd Sopian Zakaria, an officer from the prosecutor's division of the Attorney-General's Chambers.
Despite the participation of three police officers on the task force, Muhyiddin expressed confidence that the panel would be unbiased.
"All the three panel members are not from the special branch," the home minister assured reporters.

Families respond
But the families of both men disputed that claim.
Koh's family issued a statement later in the day expressing "grave concerns" about the composition of the task force, citing a lack of gender and racial diversity on the all-male and all-Malay panel, as well as the fact that half of its members are with the police.
Koh is a member of Malaysia's ethnic Chinese and Christian minority, and Amri is a member of the Shia Muslim minority.
Koh's family singled out Mokhtar Mohd Noor, the chief of legal affairs for the Royal Malaysia Police, who had previously made the closing arguments on behalf of the force at the Suhakam inquiry.
"If a police officer who participated in the Suhakam hearings can be appointed into the task force, then a lawyer from each of the families should also be appointed," the statement from Koh's family said.
"We find this totally unacceptable and we believe that in any part of the democratic civilized world, this would not happen," the family said.
Pastor Koh was snatched in broad daylight from a road in the suburbs of Kuala Lumpur on Feb. 13, 2017, when SUVs and motorcycles forced his car to stop, and men in black face masks whisked him away. The abduction took less than a minute and was captured on surveillance cameras.
Rights groups had earlier said the pastor was likely targeted over the belief that he preached Christianity to Muslims, a claim vehemently denied by Koh's wife, Susanna Liew.
Amri, a resident of Perlis state was last seen on Nov. 24, 2016. His disappearance may have been religiously motivated based on allegations that he was spreading Shia Muslim teachings, according to local media reports.
Amri's wife, Norhayati Mohd Ariffin, issued a statement Wednesday saying the family was glad that the government was moving to address the allegations in the Suhakam report.
However, Amri's family also said it was "concerned about the composition of the task force and how it would impact the independence and impartiality necessary for a credible investigation," according to the New Straits Times newspaper.
Separately, an advocacy group called the Citizens Action Group on Enforced Disappearances (CAGED), questioned the appointment of police officer Zamri Yahya, whose unit handles issues to do with the police force's internal affairs.
"Zamri's appointment is absolutely outrageous because his department should be within the scope of investigation of the task force," CAGED said in a statement.
The appointments to the task force demonstrate that Malaysia's government has no interest in holding complicit police personnel and their defenders accountable in the suspected abductions of Koh and Amri, CAGED said.
"A credible task force will restore honor to PDRM by unearthing the truth and punishing miscreant officers," the group said, referring to the police department by its acronym.


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BENARNEWS- Malaysia's Islamic Affairs minister has come under sharp criticism after describing a Uyghur internment camp that he visited in China as a "training and vocational center," while human rights groups and U.S. officials have likened such facilities to concentration camps.
The controversy began during Minister Mujahid Yusof Rawa's eight-day trip to China, when on June 26 he posted photos on his official Facebook page that showed adults sitting at yellow school desks in a room surrounded with artificial flowers.
The minister declined Tuesday to disclose the location of the camp holding members of the Uyghur Muslim minority or answer other questions from BenarNews about his trip.
"The Center is running industrial training activities with various skills such as sewing, legislation, art, flower arrangement and et cetera," a caption for one of the photos said, adding that Mujahid visited "the training and vocational center of the Uyghur community."
The posting did not say if the "center" was in the Xinjiang region, where U.N. officials and rights groups said that up to 1.5 million Uyghurs and other mainly Muslim Turkic minorities had been held in detention camps since April 2017.
Chinese authorities earlier denied the existence of internment camps, but said petty criminals had been sent to "employment training centers."
On June 27, Amnesty International Malaysia expressed disappointment over the minister's description of the camp.
"Amnesty International has first-hand knowledge that the Chinese authorities have detained Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims – outside any legal process – in 'political education' camps for their perceived disloyalty to the government and Chinese Communist Party," the statement said.
"The authorities label the camps as centers for "transformation-through-education" but most people refer to them simply as "re-education camps," Amnesty said.
In those camps, Uyghurs had been subjected to forced political indoctrination, renunciation of their faith, mistreatment, and, in some cases, torture, the rights watchdog group said.
In May, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, in an apparent reference to policies under Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Soviet Union, cited "massive human rights violations in Xinjiang where over a million people are being held in a humanitarian crisis that is on the scale of what took place in the 1930s."
On Monday, the Malaysian state news service Bernama reported that Mujahid's visit to China was approved by the cabinet and "given guidance by the Foreign Ministry to ensure diplomatic ties between Malaysia and China were not affected."
Mujahid didn't only go to China to visit the Uyghur ethnic group but also to exchange views on peace and religion, according to Bernama.
On June 27, the Malaysian minister met with Wang Zuoan, vice minister of the United Front Work Department – the ideological unit of the Chinese Communist Party. During their discussion, Mujahid emphasized the importance of "freedom of religions and respecting the rights of the citizens to practice the religion of their choice," said a statement issued by Mujahid's office on Monday, in which he defended himself from criticism over his description of the camp.
The governments of Malaysia and neighboring Indonesia, the two largest Muslim-majority nations in Southeast Asia, have been vocal about the perceived oppression of the Palestinian people and persecution of Rohingya Muslims but relatively quiet about China's policies toward the Uyghurs.
Last month, a Jakarta think tank lambasted Indonesia for failing to stand up for Uyghurs confined to internment camps in Xinjiang.
"The systematic repression of China's ethnic Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang Autonomous Region has caused little angst in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country," the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC) said in a report.
"The Indonesian government by and large sees the Uyghur crackdown as a legitimate response to separatism ...," it said.
IPAC also pointed to the fact that China was Indonesia's largest trading partner and second largest investor, saying this added to Jakarta's reluctance to speak out on the Uyghur issue.
'Most imbecilic'
China, for its part, has rejected allegations raised by a U.N. panel in August 2019 that Chinese authorities had built a "massive internment camp" in the restive Xinjiang region, where Beijing spent decades trying to suppress pro-independence sentiment.
Although Beijing initially denied the existence of internment camps, Chinese authorities tried to change the public image of those facilities, describing them instead as "boarding schools" that provided vocational training and discouraged radicalization.
P. Ramasamy, a senior official in the Democratic Action Party (DAP), one of the partners in Malaysia's ruling Pakatan Harapan coalition, was among those back home criticizing Mujahid for describing the camps as "training centers."
"It appears that Malaysia is willing to modify its policy on Muslims in general when it suits its political and strategic purpose," Ramasamy, deputy chief minister of Penang state, told the Straits Times newspaper last week.
Reacting to the minister's Facebook post about his visit to the Uyghur camp, Ahmad Farouk Musa, founder of the Islamic Renaissance Front (IRF), a Kuala Lumpur think tank, called Mujahid a "victim of Communist China propaganda."
"This is surely the most imbecilic statement by our minister in this new government," the news portal Free Malaysia Today (FMT) quoted Ahmad as saying in an interview.
Mujahid, in his press statement on Monday, tried to fend off accusations that he was pandering to Beijing's propaganda.
A news report about his trip "was confusing, incorrect and did not portray the whole speech," the statement from Mujahid's office said, referring to Free Malaysia Today, which published the story.
The statement went on to defend a speech he made at the Beijing Foreign Studies University on June 28, in which FMT quoted Mujahid as saying that "false news" about Muslims being oppressed in China "could trigger a wave of sympathy for the oppressed and affect relationships."
"In his speech text, the minister did not use the word Xinjiang or Uyghur as mentioned. The word 'false news' was used to describe how false news can jeopardize the bilateral relations between countries and communities," the statement from Mujahid's office said.
"For the record, China has approximately 20 million Muslims from various ethnic groups and has also 30,000 mosques and thousands of imams," it added.
On Tuesday, Mujahid through his spokesman declined to respond to a series of questions from BenarNews about his trip to China, including whether he discussed with Chinese officials international concerns that had been raised about the mass incarceration of Uyghurs at internment camps, and whether his trip took him to Xinjiang.
As of September 2018, the fate of Uyghurs in detention camps in Xinjiang remains unknown and most of the detainees' families have been kept in the dark, according to rights groups.
"China has intensified its campaign of mass internment, intrusive surveillance, political indoctrination and forced cultural assimilation against the region's Uighurs, Kazakhs and other predominantly Muslim ethnic groups," Amnesty said in its statement last week.
The controversy over Mujahid's comments erupted about nine months after Malaysia freed 11 ethnic Uyghurs from detention and sent them to Turkey, in defiance of a request by Beijing that Kuala Lumpur hand them over to Chinese authorities. The 11 had fled to the Southeast Asian nation after breaking out of a jail in neighboring Thailand in 2017.


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BENARNEWS- Defense attorneys were still waiting for the FBI to share documents in the case of a North Korean living in Malaysia who faces possible extradition to the U.S. for alleged involvement in money laundering, a lawyer told a court in Kuala Lumpur.
Defense counsel Jagjit Singh complained during a procedural hearing Thursday that his client, businessman Mun Chol Myong, 54, was arrested on May 13 and had been in detention for 51 days.
The United States has applied to extradite Mun, who has lived in Malaysia for a decade and was involved in business dealings in China, on allegations that he breached sanctions imposed by Washington against Pyongyang, according to Malaysian officials and sources.
"Are we being played by the Americans? Our judiciary is a proud institution, we will not be played," Singh told the court, claiming his client had lost 10 kilograms (22 pounds) while under detention.
He said he had sent letters to Malaysia's attorney-general and the justice ministry, but did not receive any reply. 

"Is this what 'New Malaysia' is?" Singh said, adding that it was unacceptable for the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to delay delivering the documents on the charges against Mun for such a long time.
A spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Justice, which oversees the bureau, declined Friday to comment on a BenarNews email seeking a reaction.
The charges against Mun related to money laundering in violation of the U.N. Security Council's sanctions that aim to deprive North Korea of funds that could be funneled into Pyongyang's nuclear energy and nuclear-weapons program, a source in the Malaysian intelligence told BenarNews last month.
Mun and his family lived in an apartment in a Kuala Lumpur suburb while he did business in China, the source said, adding that Malaysian authorities were not certain what kind of business deals he had when he frequently traveled to Beijing.
Mun, who is facing five counts of money-laundering in the United States, traded liquor and luxury goods with North Korea, Agence France-Presse reported on Thursday.
AFP quoted prosecutor Faizul Aswad Masri as saying that the offenses allegedly happened between 2014 and 2017, and involved "controlled items which cannot be exported to North Korea." Faizul did not elaborate.
Last month, Singh and fellow defense attorney Akberdin Abdul Kader asked the court to allow Mun to be released on bail, citing that he was in poor health, his wife was stricken with cancer, and that they also had two children.
But Magistrate Noorasyikin Sahat rejected that petition, saying the North Korean businessman was deemed to be a flight risk.
On Thursday, Singh argued again that Mun should be given his temporary freedom, saying the allegations against his client were not related to terrorism.
He also produced what he said was a letter from the North Korean embassy in Kuala Lumpur, which guaranteed Mun's court presence if he was charged in Malaysia.
"The court should know that the suspect has never been to America, and has had no dealings with America," he said. "Charges are all extra-territorial."
Akberdin, the other defense attorney, attempted to portray Mun as less likely to be a flight risk by emphasizing that the North Korean man's child was attending school in Malaysia.
He also said that if, indeed, there was a valid crime committed by Mun, then he should just be tried in Malaysia, not in the United States.
But, in the end, the judge squashed the request and calendared the next hearing for July 12.
"The same matter had been ruled previously," Noorasyikin said. "The issue of bail is done."


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BENARNEWS- Malaysian counter-terrorism police on Tuesday announced the arrests of two Rohingya men who they said supported a Myanmar insurgent group, including one who allegedly posted a video online calling for the assassination of Bangladesh's leader.
Two other foreigners, a Filipino and an Indian national, were taken into custody separately for suspected links with insurgent groups as well, Police Inspector-General Abdul Hamid Bador said in a statement. The four suspects, whose names police did not reveal, were captured in various locations in Kedah and Selangor states between June 14 and July 3.
"A 41-year-old Rohingya who worked as a laborer at the Sungai Petani district of Kedah was arrested on June 24. He is a supporter of insurgent group Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army [ARSA] and was arrested for posting a death threat video against Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed on his Facebook page," Abdul Hamid said.
Malaysian police would not treat the alleged threat against Hasina lightly, a source close to the investigation told BenarNews.
"We are investigating the case. We cannot reveal more at the moment," the source said, adding, "this is still serious."
Background checks revealed that the Rohingya suspect had a criminal history, Abdul Hamid said.
"He had been detained three times prior to the latest arrest. First in 1997 for illegally entering Malaysia, then in 2012 for possessing fake travel documents and last in 2015 for being involved in human trafficking activity," the police chief said in the statement without going into detail about the cases.
Abdul Hamid said counter-terrorist police also arrested a Rohingya who worked as a teacher.
"The 25-year-old man who worked at a religious school in Bukit Pinang in Kedah was detained on July 3 for being an ARSA supporter," he said, adding that police were investigating to determine if the two men were connected.
Authorities in Myanmar have blamed ARSA rebels for launching deadly raids on police and military outposts in Rakhine State that provoked a brutal crackdown on the country's stateless Rohingya Muslim minority in August 2017. In turn, that caused more than 740,000 Rohingya to flee and seek shelter at refugee camps in neighboring Bangladesh, a majority-Islamic country.
Malaysian police did not release details about how the pair of Rohingya suspects entered Malaysia or if they were there legally.
In May, two Rohingya were among four suspects who were apprehended when police foiled an Islamic State (IS) plot to attack worship sites and assassinate "high-profile personalities" during Ramadan. Those arrests were the first involving linked to alleged terrorist activities in Malaysia.
The predominantly Muslim country has been seen a safe haven in Southeast Asia for Rohingya fleeing from persecution in Buddhist majority Myanmar and violence in Rakhine state. At least 90,200 Rohingya live in Malaysia, according to UNHCR, the United Nations refugee agency.
Last year, Malaysian Defense Minister Mohamad Sabu warned about a potential security problem with Rohingya expatriates.
"We are concerned that the Rohingyas could be manipulated to become suicide bombers or recruited into terrorist cells in this region," he told a Kuala Lumpur meeting of counterterrorist security professionals in August 2018.
Other arrests
Apart from the Rohingya, police in Selangor arrested a 54-year-old Filipino man on June 14.
"The suspect was arrested for allegedly having ties with the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) and also for assisting kidnap for ransom cases in the waters of Sabah," Abdul Hamid said. "The suspect has been listed as a wanted person by the Eastern Sabah Security Command (ESSCOM) and was living in Malaysia using a falsified identification document."
On June 21, police in Ampang, Selangor, arrested a 24-year-old Indian national who worked as an elevator maintenance technician.
"The suspect is believed to have acted as a facilitator to senior members of the Babbar Khalsa International terror group who entered Malaysia in November 2018 and last month," Abdul Hamid said. "Besides, the suspect also channeled 7,600 ringgit (U.S. $1,830) to fund BKI's activities in Southeast Asia."
BKI is a Sikh militant group, which gained notoriety in the 1980s for the bombing of an Air India flight that killed 330 people.
The four suspects have been detained and are being investigated under the Security Offenses (Special Measures) Act 2012, according to the Malaysian police chief.
Prior to the latest publicized arrests, 33 suspected terrorists were arrested in Malaysia since Jan. 1. Of those, 10 have been charged, nine were released, six were deported and one was referred to a foreign agency. Seven remain in custody but have not been charged.


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BENARNEWS- The FBI has provided documents backing Washington's request to extradite a North Korean living in Malaysia who faces money-laundering charges in the United States, a prosecutor told a court hearing in Kuala Lumpur on Friday.
Malaysian authorities on May 13 arrested Mun Chol Myong, a businessman who had dealings in China, saying the U.S. had applied for his extradition and alleged he was in breach of sanctions imposed against Pyongyang. He has been in detention here since then and has attended several court hearings.
"We have received the documents from the FBI," deputy public prosecutor Faizul Aswad Masri told the Magistrate Court in Kuala Lumpur.
Faizul also presented a document signed by Home Minister Muhyiddin Yassin on July 8. It confirmed that the ministry had received a formal request from the United States for Mun's extradition.
The FBI documents explained the six counts of charges against Mun, including conspiracy and laundering monetary instruments in violation of the United States Code, Faizul had said during an earlier hearing, according to an Agence France-Press report.
With the confirmation of the extradition request and FBI documents received by both the prosecution and defense teams, the case will now be elevated to the Sessions Court, which has jurisdiction over all offenses other than those punishable with the death sentence, Faizul said Friday.
The U.S. Department of Justice, which oversees the bureau, on Friday declined to comment on Mun's case again, after BenarNews sent an email asking for copies of the FBI documents.
Defense attorney Jagjit Singh told reporters that he would challenge the extradition request during the next hearing, which is expected to take place within two weeks.
"The matter will be heard in the Sessions Court, we will be fighting it there," he said.
Last month, a source in Malaysian intelligence told BenarNews that the United States viewed the charges against Mun as in violation of the U.N. Security Council's sanctions, which aim to deprive North Korea of funds that could be funneled into Pyongyang's nuclear energy and nuclear-weapons program.
Mun, 54, and his family lived in an apartment in a Kuala Lumpur suburb while he did business in China, the source said, adding that Malaysian authorities were not certain what kind of business deals he had when he frequently traveled to Beijing.
Faizul, the prosecutor, told the news agency AFP that Mun had allegedly traded "controlled items" with North Korea between 2014 and 2017. Faizul did not elaborate, but other reports said the North Korean had sold liquor and luxury goods during his trips to Pyongyang.
In June, Singh and fellow defense attorney Akberdin Abdul Kader asked the court to allow Mun to be released on bail, citing that he and his wife were suffering from health issues while taking care of their two children.
But Magistrate Noorasyikin Sahat rejected that petition, saying the North Korean businessman was deemed to be a flight risk.
Mun wore a dark-blue shirt and gray pants during Friday's hearing, which lasted about 10 minutes. He did not say a word and was whisked away by his security escorts through a building corridor reserved for judges and high-profile defendants.


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BENARNEWS- A seminar about a message that seeks to promote unity in the Muslim world was cancelled after organizers notified authorities about bomb threats posted online along with hateful comments by followers of a group opposed to Malaysia's Shia minority.
The seminar scheduled for Saturday was about the Amman Message, a statement issued in Jordan's capital by King Abdullah II bin Al-Hussein during a Ramadan sermon in November 2004.
Abdullah's message underscored the need to re-emphasize Islam's core values of tolerance and mutual respect and recognized the various schools of Muslim theology, including its two largest denominations: the Shia and Sunni.
"The cancellation is due to the comment received by the organizer at the Facebook page [the] Movement to Eradicate Shia," Asmawati Ahmad, spokesman for the Royal Malaysia Police, told BenarNews.
Ahmad emphasized that organizers themselves had cancelled the seminar without any advice from police.
The cancellation occurred after Facebook page postings drew hateful comments that were shared hundreds of times.
On July 6, a follower uploaded a poster about the seminar, which was expected to be attended by Mujahid Yusof Rawa, Malaysia's religious affairs minister. One poster commented: "We should bomb this place."
A government official, who requested anonymity, said Malaysia should be wary of militancy movements that could flare up into larger conflicts pitting Sunni against Shia.
"Such a threat should not be taken lightly even if it only comes from one person," the source told BenarNews.
Islam is the official religion in Malaysia, where around 60 percent of its 32 million people follow the Sunni teaching. The practice of other types of Islamic teachings is prohibited by the government, particularly efforts to proselytize Malaysian Sunni Muslims.
Attracting followers
The Facebook page Movement to Eradicate Shia has garnered more than 17,000 followers and received 18,000 likes, while another page called Anti-Shia Movement Malaysia has attracted 133,000 followers, with many members discussing issues about the government's handling of their Islam-related complaints.
Ahmad El-Muhammady, a lecturer from the International Islamic University of Malaysia, agreed that the cancellation of the seminar was necessary because, he said, it "may escalate into violence."
"There are groups who perceive the forum as the platform to spread Shia [teachings] in Malaysia," El-Muhammady told the South China Morning Post. "For them, this [seminar] is a provocative act as Malaysia is a Sunni state."
One of the seminar organizers, the International Institute of Advanced Islamic Studies (IAIS), on Wednesday filed a police report on the bomb threat, Asmawati told reporters.
It was not immediately clear if any arrests had been made.
Police said they were probing the case as a possible violation of the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998, which carries prison penalties of up to one year and hefty fines. Any person arrested for involvement could also face "criminal intimidation" charges that carry prison terms of up to two years, police said.
IAIS posted an apologetic announcement on its website about the cancelation of the seminar, which had a sub-title: "Amman Message as a Platform of Peace."
"We regret to inform you that the 'Amman Message Seminar' which was scheduled on 13 July 2019 has been cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances."
The Sunni and the Shia, both believe in the oneness of God and the five pillars of Islam but don't see eye to eye on a host of issues and religious practices. There are about 40,000 Shia followers who practice their belief in secret in Malaysia, according to religious scholars.
In its 2018 Report on International Religious Freedom issued last month, the U.S. State Department noted that Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's Pakatan Harapan coalition, which won power in May 2018, "indicated that it would continue to enforce a 1996 fatwa declaring Shia teachings 'deviant.'"
Yet unlike in previous years, there were no reports of religious authorities in Malaysia arresting Shia Muslim for observing Ashura, the report said.
"Media reported, however, that religious authorities in Kuala Lumpur and Selangor state increased monitoring of Shia individuals to prevent Ashura gatherings and distributed leaflets condemning 'deviant practices,'" it added.
As the controversy erupted over the seminar's cancellation, Mahathir told reporters on Thursday that the threat that prompted the seminar's cancellation was "not the right way to act," state news agency Bernama quoted him as saying.
But the prime minister also said: "If they want to welcome Buddhists or Shia or whatever, it's their right, as long as they don't try to spread their teaching among the Malaysian Muslims, who are all Ahli Sunnah Wal Jamaah."


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BENARNEWS- Malaysia has taken back more than U.S. $243 million from a Chinese state company to cover the portion of gas pipeline projects that Kuala Lumpur had paid for but were never completed, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said Monday.
He said Malaysia had paid about 80 percent of the cost of two pipelines, which were being built by China Petroleum Pipeline Engineering Ltd. (CPP), but only 13 percent had been completed when his government ordered construction suspended in July 2018 and subsequently cancelled them.
At the time, Mahathir, who had taken office about two months earlier after a huge electoral upset, said the action was necessary because his administration had inherited a debt of 1 trillion ringgit ($243.5 billion) from the previous government.
"The government is entitled to the money since the project was canceled. We want money for the parts not implemented," he told a press conference in Malaysia's administrative capital on Monday as he fielded questions about the two pipelines.
As prime minister, Mahathir said he was responsible for the government's action but did not reveal details of the recovery of the money that had been held by CPP in a Malaysian bank account.
"They (CPP) entered into a contract to build these pipelines from the government. They took 80 percent of the contract price. For the part they have not delivered, the government is claiming that back," Mahathir said.
The prime minister said the move should not create tension with China.
"The thing is that the contract was not carried out in full," he said. "I don't see why China would feel unhappy. I am taking back money for work they have not done."
Mahathir was responding to questions from journalists about a news report that the government had taken back more than 1 billion ringgit ($243 million) held by CPP amid a dispute involving the pipeline projects, located in the western part of peninsular Malaysia and Sabah state.
Over the weekend, the Singapore Straits Times cited sources saying that the Malaysian government had ordered banking giant HSBC to transfer funds in CPP's Malaysian account to a company owned by the Ministry of Finance, Suria Strategic Energy Resources Sdn Bhd (SSER).
CPP officials, who previously said they would negotiate for reasonable compensation over the cancelled projects, claimed they were not given any reason for the transfer, the Straits Times reported.
"CPP firmly abides with the laws of Malaysia and is perplexed by the unilateral transfer of money without notifying CPP," it said, according to the Straits Times. "Once we have further information, CPP will take the necessary and appropriate action to protect its rights. We hope that our Malaysian counterparts can resolve this with us through amicable means."
When Mahathir's government officially cancelled the pipeline projects last August, it also halted the East Coast Rail Link (ECRL). That was another Chinese-backed infrastructure project, which was part of Beijing's One Belt, One Road (OBOR) initiative, a geopolitical strategy to build a modern-day Silk Road through a network of ports, railways, roads and trade routes that would connect China to markets in Southeast Asia, South Asia and beyond.
In April 2019, Mahathir announced that the rail link was back on track after his government had renegotiated its price by persuading Beijing to reduce the cost to U.S. $11 billion from the $16 billion originally agreed to by his predecessor's government.
Finance minister denies involvement
Earlier on Monday, Malaysian Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng said his ministry was not involved in taking the $243 million back from the Chinese engineering firm.
"I would just like to say that the ministry of finance and I, we did not issue any instructions of seizure. So if there is any instruction of seizure, you should refer to enforcement agencies. That is all I want to say," he told reporters in the lobby of parliament.
In June 2018, Lim revealed that Malaysia had paid 8.3 billion ringgit ($2.02 billion) for the two projects valued at 9.4 billion ringgit ($2.29 billion) even though only 13 percent of the work had been finished. Eleven months later, government officials said they were negotiating with China-based contractors on the total compensation amount to be paid by Suria Strategic Energy Resources related to the cancellation of the projects.
In 2016, then-Prime Minister Najib Razak's government awarded the contracts for a 600-km (372-mile) petroleum pipeline along the western part of peninsular Malaysia and a 662-km (411- mile) gas pipeline in Sabah, in Malaysian Borneo.
In July 2018, reports surfaced that Mahathir was investigating to determine if Najib's government had used funds earmarked for the pipeline projects to pay off debt incurred by state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).
1MDB, founded by Najib in 2009 to spur national investment, has been subject to lawsuits and criminal investigations around the globe after billions of dollars allegedly went missing from the fund. U.S. Justice Department officials have described the 1MDB case as "the worst kleptocracy scandal in recent times."


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BENARNEWS- The lower house of Malaysia's parliament voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday to approve a constitutional amendment to reduce the minimum voting age to 18 from 21 and allow people as young as 18 to run for public office.
If the Malaysian Senate approves the bill as widely expected in the next hurdle, the change to the constitution could expand the nation's voter registry by as much as a half, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said.
"The government expects the number of voters to increase by 50 percent to 22.7 million in 2023," the 94-year-old leader told parliament on Tuesday.
All 211 MPs who attended Tuesday's parliamentary session voted for the bill to amend the constitution to institute the proposed changes to the election laws, which also include automatic registration for all eligible voters. Eleven MPs were not present when the vote was held after debating on the bill continued for four hours on Tuesday.
"The [proposed] amendments to the Federal Constitution today is a start to a new political landscape in Malaysia," said Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman, the 26-year-old minister of Youth and Sports, the youngest member of Mahathir's cabinet who had led a social media campaign in favor of reducing the minimum voting age.
"Today indicates that young people are no longer seen as a burden, but a big trust in promoting Malaysia," he said.
The bill was adopted after the ruling Pakatan Harapan coalition agreed to the opposition's demands that the proposed amendments to lower the minimum voting age include lowering the minimum age for running for office from 21 to 18, as well as making voter registration automatic.
"Congratulations to the Honorable Prime Minister, and congratulations to all members of this house for creating history today, exactly one year after the current parliament went into session," House Speaker Mohamad Ariff Md Yusof said, adding that the lower house passed the bill without any amendments on Tuesday.
At least 148 house votes, or a two-thirds majority, were needed to pass the bill to amend Articles 47 and 119 of constitution that cover the nation's voting and electoral rules.
The Senate is expected to vote on the bill during its next session, which runs from July 22 to 30. If the upper house passes the bill, then it will become law after the king endorses it and it is officially published.
Should Malaysia adopt the law, it would join other Southeast Asian countries, including the Philippines and Thailand, where people as young as 18 are eligible to vote. In neighboring Indonesia, the minimum voting age is 17.
"We welcome these proposals and we hope that all parties can support this proposal. National youth is a catalyst for the future and this is a form of recognition for young Malaysians," Bersih 2.0, a Malaysian electoral watchdog group and grassroots movement, said in a statement.
'I know we need to vote'
On Tuesday, some Malaysians younger than 18 expressed mixed reactions to the news of the day's parliamentary vote.
"I do not know much about elections, but I know we need to vote ... I'm not very interested in politics," Mohamad Aniq Jalaludin, 14, a student at Klang High School, told BenarNews.
His 15-year-old friend said he had only heard about the parliamentary bill from one of his teachers.
"Yes, my teacher talked about voting rights being reduced to 18, so I'm going to be a voter, but the news does not impact me, "said Aminullah Firdaus Ahmad, a student at another school in Klang.
"Perhaps I will vote when the time comes, but I do not know about its importance," he said.
Meanwhile, Mustafa Hamzah, the father of a 16-year-old, said it was necessary to educate or inform children about the importance of voting.
"These new things make no sense if the students do not know what they are, and their importance. So I think there should be a form of information or a campaign in schools to make them aware," he told BenarNews.


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BENARNEWS- The human rights situation in Myanmar is generating problems for nations in South and Southeast Asia, and Naypyidaw is even apparently pressuring neighbors in its efforts to avoid scrutiny over rights violations within its borders, a senior U.N. official said Thursday.
Yanghee Lee, the United Nations special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, urged other countries in the region to address potential peace and security concerns stemming from violations of rights in Myanmar. She was speaking to reporters in Kuala Lumpur at the end of an 11-day visit to Thailand and Malaysia.
"Following my visit, it is extremely clear to me that the human rights situation of Myanmar has created and is continuing to create, serious regional issues for South and Southeast Asia," she said as she read out a statement at a press conference.
She cited some facts including that nearly 1.5 million Rohingya refugees and others from Myanmar are sheltering in Bangladesh,
Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and India; and many people fleeing from Myanmar are victims of human trafficking throughout the region.
"It is incumbent on Myanmar's neighbors to acknowledge these most serious issues, that Myanmar has produced them and that they continue to have significant impacts on countries in the region," Lee said.
"It is of great concern to me that Myanmar appears to be increasing pressure and engaging the Governments of neighboring countries in its efforts to violate rights and avoid scrutiny. This includes obstructing me in carrying out my mandate," she added.
While she was in Thailand earlier in her trip, she alleged that she "had to abort part of my visit due to interference."
"This is very serious and not to be taken lightly," Lee said.
In 2017, Myanmar's government barred her from visiting the country to assess the rights situation there after Naypyidaw had criticized a previous mission report issued by her as biased and unfair.
Commenting on Thursday about U.S. sanctions imposed this week on four senior Myanmar generals, Lee said they should be strengthened.
The four, including Commander-in-Chief Min Aung Hlaing, are now barred from travel to the U.S. for their roles in a 2017 army campaign that killed thousands of ethnic Rohingya and drove more than 740,000 others as refugees into Bangladesh.
"I think we should freeze their assets and the assets of their families, too," said Lee, adding that sanctions should be applied to the full group of six generals, including the four already banned from entry to the U.S., identified last year by a U.N. fact-finding team for referral to the International Criminal Court in The Hague for genocide.
Internet shutdown in Rakhine
During her trip in Thailand and Malaysia she gathered information from sources about problems in Myanmar arising from a government-ordered shutdown of internet services in areas of northern Rakhine state.
The shutdown has blocked important flows of information in the war-torn region, preventing reports of army atrocities from reaching outside news sources and delaying warnings of dangerous floods, she said, describing the nearly month-old information blackout in Rakhine as "unprecedented and unacceptable."

"It is challenging to get information on what is happening on the ground under these circumstances, but I have been told that three villages in Rakhine have been burned down by the Tatmadaw [Myanmar's national military] in the last two weeks," Lee said.

Three Rakhine townships have also been struck by floods during the shutdown period, Lee said.

"There is no access to mobile internet in any of those townships, meaning that people were not adequately prepared for or warned of the floods that occurred," Lee said, adding, "This has resulted in displacement and houses being destroyed."

Humanitarian groups and other natural disaster responders have now found their work complicated by lack of internet access, said Lee.

"The question is, did the Myanmar Government impose the internet ban to inflict more harm on the people living in Rakhine?" Lee asked.

Residents, aid groups cut off

Citing ongoing fighting between national forces and the Arakan Army (AA), an armed group demanding greater autonomy in Rakhine state, the Myanmar government on June 20 ordered four telecom operators to suspend internet services to eight townships in Rakhine and one in neighboring Chin state where battles have taken place.

Rakhine residents now report that they cannot conduct bank transactions or connect with relatives and friends at home or abroad. Domestic and international NGOs and other organizations, meanwhile, say their ability to help some of the roughly 35,000 people displaced by fighting in Rakhine has been limited by the shutdown.

A motion to restore internet service in Rakhine was, however, rejected in the lower house of Myanmar's parliament on Wednesday, with no reason given for the refusal to bring it forward for discussion, sources told the Myanmar Service of Radio Free Asia (RFA), a sister entity of BenarNews.

"We submitted the proposal yesterday," said Khin Saw Wai, a member of parliament for Rakhine's Rathedaung township, adding she was told that the speaker of the lower house would not permit her motion to be discussed.

"The [internet] ban was ordered by the government, but we should be allowed to discuss this inside the parliament," she said. "This lies within the authority of the parliamentary Speaker."

Attempts by RFA to reach Ti Khun Myat, Speaker of the Union Parliament, for comment on Thursday were unsuccessful.

Goal not fulfilled

The government has not accomplished its stated goal of enforcing security and the rule of law in Rakhine by shutting down the internet, one aid worker in the region said.

"The internet ban has impacted our relief efforts, and transactions for donations have been down," Nyi Phu – chairman of the Phu Sin Myittar Humanitarian Association – said. 

"But I don't think this has alleviated any of our political problems. Restrictions can sometimes cause people to explode," he said.

Many people living in Rakhine now have no idea what is happening in their own region, one local villager said.

"Houses have been burning in the Shi Shar Taung area in Buthidaung township," Saw Win, a resident of Zaydi Byin village in Rathedaung township, said.

"But since the internet is down, no evidence of this can be brought to the public. Even relief work for the floods in the area is having serious problems now."


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BENARNEWS- A Rohingya-based extortion syndicate in Malaysia has been channeling thousands of dollars to fund Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army militants in Myanmar, a senior Malaysian police official said Monday.
Authorities have determined that about 80,000 ringgit (U.S. $19,450) was channeled to ARSA in 2019 through an intricate money transfer system called "hawala," Ayob Khan Mydin Pitchay, who heads the Malaysian police's counterterrorist wing, told BenarNews.
"The 80,000 ringgit was only this year alone. We believe the amount was bigger," he said, adding that police also suspected that the syndicate was adept in covering its tracks.
Ayob said that money was obtained from Rohingya living in Malaysia.
"They gave their money out of fear. Some believe in ARSA's fight, some don't but had to give because they were threatened," Ayob said.
Speaking on the condition of anonymity because of fear, a 24-year-old Rohingya and his friend in Kuala Lumpur told BenarNews they knew about the extortion scheme.
"We are in the same situation," he said. "It is hard to find money here and that all was burned up, having to pay them," the 24-year-old said, adding that the extortionist claimed to know where his family was in Bangladesh and threatened to attack them if not paid.
"They asked for a certain amount, but they take whatever they can get. We don't know if their threat is real, but we are scared," the Rohingya said.
Described as "money transfer without money movement" by the U.S. Department of the Treasury and Interpol, Hawala uses an intricate network of trusted agents and secret passwords to transfer money through a proxy. The ancient banking system that originated in the Middle East and South Asia leaves little or no trace as it relies on trust and the extensive use of connections such as family relationships.
Founded in 2012 as Harakah al-Yaqin (Faith Movement) to fight for "the liberation of persecuted Rohingya," ARSA was declared as a terrorist group by Myanmar authorities on Aug. 25, 2017.
In its official Twitter account, ARSA claims that it "only legitimately and objectively operates as an ethno-nationalist movement within its ancestral homeland of Arakan in Burma" and reassures that its activities will not transcend beyond its country.
Authorities in Myanmar blamed ARSA rebels for launching deadly raids on police and military outposts in Rakhine state that provoked a brutal crackdown on the country's stateless Rohingya Muslim minority in August 2017, forcing hundreds of thousands of Rohingya to flee to Bangladesh and other countries.
About 95,000 Rohingya had settled in Malaysia as of the end of June, according to figures from the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR).
Zafar Ahmad of the Myanmar Ethnic Rohingya Human Rights Organization Malaysia said he welcomed efforts by Malaysian authorities to enforce the law, but cautioned them against linking the Rohingya community with militant groups such as ARSA and the Islamic State.
"The Myanmar government has been using terrorism as a basis to exterminate the Rohingya in Arakan, and for an Islamic country like Malaysia to directly link Rohingya to these terror groups is like giving bullets to Myanmar to justify their actions," Zafar told BenarNews.
He said that he did not know of any Rohingya in Malaysia who were victimized by such schemes, but heard about them on social media and in the news. 

"I met with the police special branch three or four times about this and I have said the same thing to them – what they heard is also what I heard, all through other people," he said.
It is possible that there are Rohingya who were duped into the cause that they do not necessarily understand, he said.
"Many of us are deprived of basic education. Perhaps someone told them that this is jihad and you get to go to the highest heaven, but that does not mean they are ARSA," Zafar said.
Syndicate expansion
The extortion syndicate apparently started in the northern state of Kedah along the Thai border and expanded to other states including Penang and Perak, according to Ayob.
In June, counter-terrorism police arrested two Rohingya men in Kedah who they said supported ARSA. One of the men allegedly posted a video online calling for the assassination of Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

Ayob said one of the men allegedly belonged to the extortion syndicate and is one four Rohingya arrested this year for alleged involvement in terror-related crime.
During a meeting of counterterrorist security professionals in Kuala Lumpur last year, Malaysian Defense Minister Mohamad Sabu warned about potential security issues involving Rohingya who could be manipulated to become suicide bombers or recruited into terrorist cells.


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BENARNEWS- All three small children of a slain top Malaysian recruiter for Islamic State in Syria have perished and their detained mother wants to return home where she has to undergo a mandatory deradicalization process, a top counterterrorism official told BenarNews on Tuesday.
The children of the late Muhammad Wanndy Mohd Jedi – aged 1, 2, and 3 years old – were killed on Nov. 9, 2018, when a bomb explosion caused a portion of their house to collapse during fighting in the Syrian city of Hajin, according to Ayob Khan Mydin Pitchay, who heads the Malaysian police's counter-terror branch.
This is the first time news of the children's death – 19 months after Wanndy was killed in an airstrike – has been made public.
Their mother, Nor Mahmudah Ahmad, who survived the blast, had vowed after her husband's death to continue in the Islamic State terror group and had married another fighter with whom she had a child.
"The only one left of her four children is the one she has with her new husband. The other three were killed in the attack [in Hajin]," Ayob said in an interview with BenarNews in Kuala Lumpur.
Hajin, a small city in northeastern Syria, was the last major town controlled by Islamic State (IS) in the country before it fell to U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces in December 2018.
Nor's family contacted Malaysian authorities in April to request that Wanndy's widow, now married to a Belgian IS fighter, be allowed to return home from Syria where she is in detention, Ayob said.
Her new husband will not be allowed into Malaysia because he is not a citizen of the country, Ayob said.
Nor, who is from the northern state of Kedah, traveled to Syria with Wanndy in 2014 where all three of their children were born.
Wanndy was responsible for recruiting new IS members from Malaysia, and was the alleged mastermind of the first attack claimed by IS on Malaysian soil. The hand grenade attack outside a Kuala Lumpur nightclub injured eight people in June 2016.
In an interview conducted via Facebook in 2015, Wanndy told BenarNews he had no regrets about abandoning his life in Malaysia.
"I must say that I do harbor the hope of returning to Malaysia, but it is not my priority as my focus now is to stay here and fight, to achieve my dream of defending the IS," he said at the time.
Wanndy was killed in a drone strike in Raqqa, Syria, on April 29, 2017, the Malaysian government confirmed about two weeks later. In a Facebook posting later that year, Nor vowed to carry on his efforts in Syria.
Nor's family has prayed for her return.
As early as October 2015, Ahmad Hussin, Nor's father, said he hardly knew his militant son-in-law and lost touch with the couple when they left for Syria.
"Over there, they are staring at death day in and day out. As a father, of course, I am deeply concerned for her safety," Ahmad told BenarNews at the time.
Malaysians in Syria
Ayob said Nor was one of 39 Malaysians being held in Syria for alleged involvement in terror-related activities in the country, who have contacted their families and authorities seeking to return home.

In October 2018, authorities announced the return of a Malaysian woman and her two children from Syria, calling it the government's first attempt in efforts to deradicalize Malaysians wanting to return from the war-torn country.
The woman in her 30s was identified as "Aisyah." Her husband, an IS fighter who was influenced by Wanndy through Facebook, died in an attack in Syria, according to authorities.
Since 2013 as many as 116 Malaysians traveled to Syria to join IS. Of those, 40 were killed, 11 returned home and 65 remain, police data shows.
Ayob said Nor and others, if they returned, would be monitored by the counter-terror unit for an unspecified period for assessment. During the assessment, they would attend sessions with counselors and religious classes before they can be released to their families.
"Only women and children will go through the special rehab program that we have for returnees," Ayob said. "If there is evidence they have serious involvement in IS, they can be charged in court. As for the male returnees, they will definitely be brought to court."
Once they complete the program, women and children with no direct involvement with IS would be released and monitored, the senior police official said.
'Teach them a lesson'
Security analyst Ahmad Ghazali Abu Hassan, a retired university professor, believes the government should take a firm stand and not allow Malaysian citizens who went to Syria because of links to IS to return home.
"We need to teach them a lesson. I don't agree that we should take them back," he told BenarNews.
He said they were eager to return to enjoy the comfort of food and shelter. "But do they feel remorse? No."
He cited the example of Britain which this year revoked the nationality of "Jihadi bride" Shamima Begum, who left London to join the Islamic State in 2015 at the age of 15.
Another analyst disagreed.
"We cannot just leave them like that. It is not the best option in the long term. It is also against human rights," said Ahmad El Muhammady of Malaysian International Islamic University.
He said those who return could be put through several phases of rehabilitation. The first phase would be where authorities extract information about IS to share with international foreign intelligence agencies such as Interpol, the FBI or CIA.
"We can also do ideological profiling and see to what extent they are exposed," he told BenarNews. "How they think, how they see things and what experiences they have.
"It is because some go there not to wage war but to live under the caliphate," he said. "The role of civil society is to help those who returned home to adjust in the community. If we can do all this, the chances of them retaliating are low."


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BENARNEWS- A Malaysian judge has ruled that a North Korean businessman who lives in the country and faces money-laundering charges in the United States will go through extradition proceedings in late September.
Sessions Court judge Rohatul Akmar Abdullah set the date for Mun Chol Myong's extradition hearing after rejecting the North Korean's bid to be released on bail, despite assurances from his defense attorneys that he would not abscond.
"The trial will start on Sept. 20," Rohatul said Tuesday after discussing the trial calendar with prosecution and defense lawyers.
Mun, a 54-year-old businessman who had dealings in China, has been living in Malaysia for about 10 years. BenarNews sources said he was involved in the palm oil industry.
Malaysian authorities arrested Mun on May 13 after the United States had applied for his extradition and alleged he was in breach of international sanctions imposed against Pyongyang. He has been in detention in Kuala Lumpur since then and has attended several court hearings.
Before the case was elevated to the Sessions Court, a lower tribunal had twice denied Mun's request for bail after hearing arguments from his attorneys that he was ill and needed medical attention.
Last month, a source in Malaysian intelligence told BenarNews that the United States viewed the charges against Mun as being in violation U.N. Security Council sanctions, which aim to deprive North Korea of funds that could be funneled into Pyongyang's nuclear energy and nuclear-weapons program.
Six counts of charges against Mun include conspiracy and laundering monetary instruments in violation of the United States Code, according to an Agence France-Presse report, which cited FBI documents presented in court.
Prosecutors told reporters that Mun had allegedly traded "controlled items" with North Korea between 2014 and 2017. Local reports said the North Korean had sold liquor and luxury goods during his trips to Pyongyang.
A spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Justice, which oversees the bureau, on Wednesday declined to comment to BenarNews about Mun's case.
Last month, Magistrate Noorasyikin Sahat rejected Mun's bail petition, saying he was deemed to be a flight risk. She cited rocky relations between Kuala Lumpur and Pyongyang following a diplomatic row in 2017 over the assassination of Kim Jong Nam, the estranged half-brother of the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, on Malaysian soil.
"The court agrees with the prosecution and agrees that there is no cause for allowing bail," judge Rohatul said Tuesday.
Defense lawyer Jagjit Singh argued for bail.
He said the North Korean embassy had submitted a written guarantee to the court that its diplomats would ensure that Mun would attend its hearings in the case.
The same document had also been sent to the Malaysian Home Ministry, as well as the Attorney General's Chamber, he said.
The embassy's chargé d'affaires, Kim Yu Song, who has always attended Mun's court hearings, made himself known to the judge on Tuesday and presented his diplomatic credentials.
But Deputy Public Prosecutor Faizul Aswad Masri responded that such a guarantee would not hold weight since there could be no legal repercussions against embassy officials because of their diplomatic immunity.
"The embassy assurance is invalid," he said. "If they break their pledge, there can be no legal recourse that can be taken against them."
Mun, dressed in a dark-blue polo shirt and flip-flops, appeared frail and tired throughout Tuesday's three-hour hearing. He showed little emotion when his third bail application was rejected.
One of his defense attorneys told BenarNews that the extradition hearing could go on for about two months.
Mun holds a residency visa under the "Malaysia My Second Home" program, which allows foreigner to stay in the country for 10 years. The immigration department extended his visa for another 10 years in April.


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BENARNEWS- Malaysia has revived anti-ship missile firings in the South China Sea shortly after Beijing test-fired at least one missile in the area around the contested Spratly Islands, but analysts expressed doubt Wednesday that these military actions would stoke tensions.
The missile firings were held as part of a larger exercise in the disputed waterway that was revived after a pause of several years because of concerns about costs, Malaysia's Navy chief, Adm. Mohd Reza Mohd Sany, told reporters during a media briefing this week. China and Malaysia are among six nations that have territorial claims in the sea.
"The last time the missiles were fired was in 2014. After five years, it gives us the chance to test the readiness of the guided missiles, missile platform again, as well as the personnel assigned," he told reporters. "The guided missiles were on target."
The firing occurred during a training code-named Exercise KerisMas. It involved 12 ships, a submarine, four Navy helicopters, four Royal Malaysia Airforce aircraft and two Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency watercraft, the admiral said.
About 3,000 personnel were involved in the exercise, which ran from July 1 to 18 and took place off Kuantan in Pahang state, the admiral said. Highlights featured the firing of Exocet MM40 Block II guided missiles from a ship and the Sea Skua guided missile from a helicopter.
Mohd Reza said the exercise was standard training and should not be seen as act of aggression.
"It is important to us that the Navy proves our capabilities to the public and to other countries in the region," he said. "Apart from that, it shows that we are ready at the highest level to ensure our assets and weapons systems are functioning."
In June, when the Chinese government announced it was carrying out two days of military training in the South China Sea, its defense minister warned that the country would "resolutely take action" to defend Beijing's claims over the waterway.
U.S. officials, meanwhile, claimed that the Chinese had conducted missile tests from man-made structures near a disputed island-chain in the South China Sea at the end of June.
"The Pentagon was aware of the Chinese missile launch from the man-made structures in the South China Sea near the Spratly Islands," Lt. Col. David Eastburn, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Defense, was quoted as saying.
China claims most of the mineral-rich sea, which is home to some of the world's most important international shipping lanes. Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei, Vietnam and Taiwan have overlapping claims.
Expensive exercise
Retired Lt. Col. Ahmad Ghazali Abu Hassan, a security analyst, agreed with Mohd Reza that the exercise would not create tension in the maritime region. He said it would be foolish for Malaysia to try to pick a fight with China.
"As what our prime minister has said, we are not interested in conflict between superpowers. We are only upholding the sovereignty of our nation under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, where we will defend our waters at all cost."
"The dispute between China is with the U.S., as Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said 'we will not get involved but we hope that it will not escalate further,' as we want to keep the South China Sea a zone of peace and neutrality," Ahmad Ghazali told BenarNews.
The government, he said, spent a lot of money during the exercise.
"It is expensive. Naval drills are the most expensive for the armed forces. One missile can cost close to a million ringgit (U.S. $243,000). If three missiles are launched, the cost is higher," he said.
Ahmad Ghazali also revealed that Exocet MM40 missiles have been in the navy's inventory since 2000.
"Each missile has its own expiry date. Like what they have in the inventory has reached years of age, therefore it is about time to use it as training," he said.
Another security analyst, Lim Yew Ming of the University Malaysia Sabah, said China would not see the training as an act of aggression.
"It is a normal practice. I don't see why China has to feel agitated because it is normal. China also carries out such training," he told BenarNews. "Moreover, China has been less assertive towards us rather than to Vietnam or Philippines."
Both analysts agreed that Malaysia regards China as a strong trade partner.
"Malaysia and China were very close during former Prime Minister Najib Razak's time and the new government, although there was a bit of tension before this, have found a way to act amicably," Lim said.
In the opinion of analyst Ahmad Ghazali, Malaysia has never sided with the U.S. or China against the other because the government knows what is at stake.
"Malaysia trades with China and the U.S. We are connected to the U.S. and China when it comes to trade, culture and tourism," he said.
"We can't simply take sides as it will only cost us more. As far as I am concerned, we have no trouble with either the Chinese or the U.S."


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BENARNEWS- Malaysia and China restarted a multibillion-dollar "One Belt, One Road" rail project on Thursday after nearly a year of renegotiations led to a deal slashing its construction cost by almost a third.
The project, known as the East Coast Rail Link (ECRL), was among Chinese-financed projects in Malaysia that were shelved months after Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad took power in a stunning electoral triumph in May 2018.
Mahathir initially rejected the railway's original price tag of 65.5 billion ringgit (U.S. $16 billion) but announced in April this year that the Chinese engineering firm contracted for the project had agreed to cut its cost to 44 billion ringgit (U.S. $11 billion).
"I think today's ceremony was made possible after a very long process of renegotiations, nine months in total," Transport Minister Anthony Loke told reporters during the re-launch of the project in Dungun, a coastal district of Malaysia's eastern Terengganu state.
He said the 640-km (398-mile) railway, which will connect Port Klang on the Strait of Malacca with the city of Kota Bharu in northeast peninsular Malaysia, would provide a robust train service for cities in the east coast corridor, and potentially lure new investments through industrial parks.
"This will ensure that a huge number of products would be transported along the ECRL," Loke said, adding that the government expected a boost in foreign direct investment, especially from China.
ECRL was initially suspended when Mahathir followed through with his electoral promise to renegotiate what he had described as "unfair" Chinese-backed projects approved by Najib Razak, his predecessor. He later announced that the project was cancelled, telling Chinese leaders during a visit to Beijing in August 2018 that Malaysia could not afford the railroad and other China-backed infrastructure projects.
But as part of the renegotiated deal struck three months ago over the rail project, Loke said the Export-Import Bank of China would finance 85 per cent of its cost, with the two countries agreeing to a 50-50 joint venture between the state-owned Malaysia Rail Link (MRL) and China Communications Construction Co. to operate the train services.
The renegotiation also saw changes of the alignment of the project, which now will extend across Negri Sembilan, south of Kuala Lumpur, avoiding the fragile densely forested areas of Bentong, east of the nation's capital.
As he stood near a partially-completed tunnel for the railway project, Chinese Ambassador Bai Tian expressed confidence that "a great wave of potential Chinese investors will come to Malaysia" upon completion of the train.
"Many of them will decide to invest," he said during a speech at a ceremony for the project's relaunch.
The project is expected to be completed in December 2026, Beijing's envoy said, adding that Malaysia could see more than double the number of Chinese tourists coming into the country from three million in 2018.
ECRL is part of Beijing's One Belt One Road initiative that stretches to 70 countries. It aims to become a 21st-century Silk Road by connecting the countries through networks of railways, bridges and ports, linking China with Africa, Europe and Southeast Asia.
Oh Ei Sun, an expert on Malaysia-China relations and a senior fellow at the Singapore Institute of International Affairs, said the project's re-launch signaled the warming up of bilateral relations between Beijing and Kuala Lumpur.
"Malaysia is in need of massive foreign investments," he said. "So it is hoped that the resumption of this project, which China sees as extremely important, would spur further Chinese investments in the country."


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BENARNEWS- Malaysia's air force says it is conducting live-fire missile exercises in Sabah state and surrounding waters including the South China Sea, days after the navy carried out similar exercises that followed Beijing's test-firing of at least one missile in the disputed waterway last month.
The 19-day training began on July 23 and is to run until Aug. 10 in the state located on Borneo Island, the Royal Malaysian Air Force announced in a news release this week.
The RMAF "is conducting live-fire missile exercises with air-to-air and air-to-surface missiles at Kota Belud's airspace shooting range," the air force said Thursday. Kota Belud is a district of Sabah that borders the South China Sea.
The training "involves Sabah's airspace and its surrounding waters," the release said.
It said the training is "to ensure the readiness of RMAF's assets and weaponry, especially when it comes to protecting the sovereignty of the national airspace."
The training is testing pilots' skills in striking targets using a multitude of weapons in the air force's arsenal, officials said.
The press release did not specify when missiles would be fired during the exercises. Air force officials declined to confirm on Friday whether any missiles had been fired during the current training.
"The public is advised to not panic and worry if they see low-flying RMAF aircraft and hear sounds of explosions in areas within Sabah's airspace," the release said.
The exercises involve 232 personnel and feature pilots flying Russian- and U.S.-made fighter jets. On Thursday, pilots dropped gravity bombs from the Russian jets at targets at a range in Sabah, a source in the air force told BenarNews.
Officials said Navy and Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA) staff would assist in the training in and around Sabah to ensure target zones were safe. A similar training was held five years ago.
"It is not yearly training. The air force conducts it from time to time according to our requirements," an air force spokesman said.
During separate training exercises that took place in the South China Sea from July 1 to July 18, Malaysia's Navy fired guided missiles from a ship and a helicopter, the commander of the military branch announced Tuesday. The naval exercises took place off Kuantan, in Pahang state in Peninsular Malaysia, he said.
The missile firings were held as part of a larger exercise in the waterway that was revived after a pause of several years because of cost concerns, Adm. Mohd Reza Mohd Sany told reporters
"The last time the missiles were fired was in 2014. After five years, it gives us the chance to test the readiness of the guided missiles, missile platform again, as well as the personnel assigned," he told reporters, adding the missiles hit their targets.
Those tests followed a Chinese government announcement in June that it was carrying out two days of military training in the South China Sea. Its defense minister warned that the country would "resolutely take action" to defend Beijing's claims over the waterway.
U.S. officials claimed the Chinese conducted missile tests from man-made structures near the contested Spratly Island chain in the South China Sea at the end of June.
"The Pentagon was aware of the Chinese missile launch from the man-made structures in the South China Sea near the Spratly Islands," Department of Defense Lt. Col. David Eastburn was quoted as saying.
China claims most of the mineral-rich South China Sea, which is home to some of the world's most important international shipping lanes. Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei, Vietnam and Taiwan have overlapping claims.
Analyst calls training essential
Aruna Gopinath, a Malaysian defense analyst, said it was essential for Malaysia to conduct missile training to ensure its military is on par with others in the region.
"RMAF must be equipped with the knowledge so that in times of a crisis we are able to overcome any problems. We should be self-sufficient and not be dependent on others," said Gopinath, who retired from the Center for International Defense and Security, National Defense University of Malaysia.
She said overlapping claims over Sabah waters and the volatile and porous maritime border with Mindanao in the Philippines warrant constant vigilance by the armed forced.
"Like what happened in Lahad Datu in February 2013, we never expected an invasion from the Filipino guerillas and took them for granted. Any form of intrusion should be confronted if we have the proper training," Gopinath said.
A group of more than 200 whose members called themselves the "Royal Security Forces of the Sultanate of Sulu and North Borneo" sailed into Lahad Datu from an island in the nearby Southern Philippines, leading to a six-week armed standoff.


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BENARNEWS- Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad told a Turkish news outlet that condemning China over its treatment of the Uyghur Muslim minority "would not achieve anything," drawing criticism from human rights groups on Wednesday.
Mahathir was asked in an interview by TRT World why Malaysia and other majority-Muslim countries were slow to speak out against Beijing's policies toward the Uyghurs, and why Kuala Lumpur had not joined 22 countries in signing a letter to the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights that condemned China's mass detention of Uyghurs.
"We do what we can. We don't knock our heads against a stone wall simply because it is there," Mahathir told the Turkish radio and television channel.
The Malaysian leader said he needed more information about the plight of the Uyghurs before passing judgment on the Chinese. He described China as a powerful nation that must be treated as such.
Authorities in China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) have held up to 1.5 million Uyghurs and other Muslim ethnic minorities accused of harboring "strong religious views" and "politically incorrect" ideas in internment camps since April 2017.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has described Beijing's actions in Xinjiang as a humanitarian crisis that is "on the scale of what took place in the 1930s" in an apparent reference to the policies of Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Soviet Union. He also called the incarcerations "the stain of the century."
Mahathir said condemning China would not resolve the issue.
"At the moment we need to verify certain things of what they are accused of. Of course they deny," he said in the interview. "We believe that the approach should not be confrontational. It should be through negotiation and exposure of what is actually happening in China.
"We can condemn it [China] but the fact is that the condemnation alone would not achieve anything," he said. The interview was uploaded to YouTube on July 29, but Malaysian media reported about it widely on Wednesday.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) and rights advocates in Malaysia react on Wednesday to the prime minister's comments.
"When even outspoken leaders like Mahathir bite their tongue rather than criticize, it illustrates the incredible steps China is taking to intimidate critics both near and far," Phil Robertson, the deputy Asia director for New York-based HRW, told BenarNews.
"Like the rest of the OIC, Malaysia crumbled under pressure when it came time to speak the truth about the Uyghurs to the powers that be in Beijing. Mahathir should have bucked the trend and condemned the violations of rights and freedom of religion suffered by the Uyghurs," he said, referring to the 57-nation Organization of Islamic Cooperation.
Aminuddin Yahya, president of Malaysia's Coalition of Muslim Groups (ISMA), urged Mahathir's administration to speak out against China's Uyghur policies.
"There are too many facts from a variety of sources proving the torture against the Uyghur Muslims," Aminuddin said.
"The government should voice its displeasure to China. This is the question of the fate of the Muslim community and is not a political issue," he told BenarNews.
The condemnation of torture against Myanmar's stateless Rohingya community, another minority Muslim group, should be matched by similar condemnation involving the Uyghurs, he added.
Like many other countries, the Malaysian government has major trade deals with China, Ahmad Fahmi Mohd Samsuddin, deputy president of the Muslim Youth Movement of Malaysia, pointed out. Those deals are the main reason government officials will not speak out on the Uyghur issue, he said.
"Malaysia cannot be alone but with 'big brothers' like Turkey and Pakistan and maybe Indonesia, perhaps it can add weight to this issue. But in reality, many countries including Pakistan and Indonesia, are in a debt trap with China," he told BenarNews.
Over the weekend, Mahathir returned home after a state visit to Turkey, which is home to a large Uyghur community.
Xinjiang internment camps
While Beijing initially denied the existence of internment camps, China this year changed tack and started describing the facilities as "boarding schools" that provide vocational training for Uyghurs, discourage radicalization and help protect the country from terrorism.
Earlier this month, Malaysia's Islamic affairs minister was criticized for describing a Uyghur camp he visited as a "training and vocational center." Minister Mujahid Yusof Rawa posted photos on Facebook that showed adults sitting at yellow school desks in a room surrounded with artificial flowers, but did not disclose the location of the camp.
Less than a year ago, the Malaysian government defied China by releasing 11 Uyghurs who had fled to Malaysia from Thailand after escaping from a prison in November 2017 and allowing them to travel to Turkey. Beijing had sought their repatriation but Mahathir said the men had broken no laws.


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BENARNEWS- A half century after deadly race riots threatened to tear Malaysia apart, race relations remain a concern among the country's political leaders and the newly installed king himself.
Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who campaigned on a pledge to defend the rights of all Malaysians irrespective of religion or race, was propelled to power last year when his coalition, led by the multiracial party People's Justice Party (PKR), toppled the government dominated by an ethnic Malay-based party that had ruled the country since independence in 1957.
Many had hoped that the new government would move aggressively with reforms to ease racial tensions.
But racial and religious tensions in the multiracial country may have worsened, PKR leader Anwar Ibrahim warned on the anniversary marking the first year in power of the Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition, or Alliance of Hope.
"The threat of racist and communal flames should not be taken lightly and brushed aside, and if left unchecked could destroy all moves to put the country back on track," he said in an anniversary message in May.
That month also marked the 50th year since bloody riots, which erupted on May 13, 1969, left nearly 200 people dead in Malaysia, many of them Chinese according to official figures, although diplomatic sources at the time said the number could be closer to 600.
Muslim Malays, along with other indigenous people, make up 69.3 percent of the country's 32.6 million population while ethnic Chinese comprise 22.8 percent and ethnic Indians consist of 6.9 percent, according to figures provided by the Statistics Department in July.
Special privileges enshrined in Malaysia's constitution ensure that Malays are granted business licenses, scholarships and jobs in the public sector and civil service.
Those privileges were reinforced by the New Economic Policy passed in the wake of the 1969 riots and aimed at giving Malays more access to economic opportunity as a way of reducing racial tensions.
Many of those policies remain in effect but reforms over the years have hardly eased tensions.
This week, Malaysia's new king Sultan Abdullah Sultan Ahmad Shah alluded to potential resurgence of a racial crisis, urging Malaysians to safeguard "the people's unity and harmony."
"My advice is to never 'ignite the fire' of misunderstandings involving matters that can threaten and destroy national harmony. Playing with fire will not only end burning one self, but will also burn down an entire village," he said as he was installed as Malaysia's 16th monarch.
Just before the king spoke at his glittering installation ceremony at the national palace, police prevented protesters who claimed race relations between Malays and other communities have been strained from marching to the ceremony site, reports said.
The protesters were from the United Malays National Organization (UMNO), the dominant partner in the ruling coalition that was toppled from power in the last election and whose former leader who served as prime minister, Najib Razak, is facing massive corruption charges.
UMNO claims the new government has been undermining Malay privileges.
"Race relations are a bit tense. Malays are restless. We feel Islam is being treated badly (by the new government)," Lokman Adam, an UMNO supreme council member who led about 300 party members in the protest, told Agence France-Presse. "We feel the current government is not able to protect Malay rights, Islam, the Malay language and the Malay rulers."
UMNO supporters fear that the government's plans to officially recognize exams taken in Chinese-medium high schools will challenge the status of Malay as the country's official language, and have also accused the government of cutting back spending on the redevelopment of mosques, AFP reported.
Teresa Kok Suh Sim, an MP from the mainly ethnic-Chinese Democratic Action Party (DAP), a PH partner, said the ruling coalition was struggling with efforts on the race question because of challenges posed by UMNO and the Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS).
"UMNO, when they became the opposition, liked to play up the race issue every now and then. Everything can be turned into a racial issue," she told BenarNews. "On the other hand, those non-Malay and non-Muslims who voted PH put forth demands for equal opportunities, putting us in a difficult position."
When PH came to power, it named the country's first ever non-Malay attorney general, Tommy Thomas, and the first ethnic Chinese finance minister in more than four decades, Lim Guan Eng.
Shared Prosperity vision 
Mahathir, who turned 94 in July, said he believes his government is taking the right approach to tackle race relations.
He said the key to the nation's success was "cooperation and tolerance of people of various faiths, races and cultures that have been going on for so long."
As part of efforts to maintain national unity, he said his government launched the Shared Prosperity Vision 2030 plan, which aims to ensure that all Malaysians reap the benefits of Malaysia's economic success in a more just and equitable manner.
"This Shared Prosperity was developed to achieve several major objectives, that is to ensure that the income and wealth gap can be addressed," Mahathir said this week.
Malaysia, however, has not been without inter-communal violence under Mahathir's government. In November, 30 people were arrested following riots at a Hindu temple that injured eight. Authorities said the incident had escalated from a dispute over relocation of the temple.
The same month, Mahathir backpedaled on a campaign promise to support the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), amid a backlash from critics who expressed fears that it could undermine Malay privileges.
Meanwhile, Mahathir, whose Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (PPBM, or Malaysian United Indigenous Party) has the second least number of parliamentary seats in the ruling coalition, recently caused a stir among his coalition partners when he called on Malay-based parties to join ranks with his party, saying Malays should be united under one umbrella.
There also are concerns about a split in the multiracial PKR, which many once believed could emerge as a leading force in weaning Malaysian politics away from race and religion and help enhance national unity.
Much work needs to be done to boost inter-ethnic relations, says a Malay professor.
"Race relations in Malaysia 50 years post-May 13 is somewhat of an 'old wine in new bottle.' It still revolves around ethnic interest, religion and economic monopoly held by the Chinese," Awang Azman told BenarNews.
"Recently it is being rattled further by non-Malays and 'liberal Malays' who are getting more brazen in their questioning of the Malay special rights," said Awang, a professor at Universiti Malaysia. "This further widens the gap between the races."

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A Malaysian soldier stands guard as a fire brigade battles a blaze in some shops and homes in Kuala Lumpur, May 17, 1969. (AP)

'We all lost'
People who lived through the 1969 riots are also concerned about the lack of progress in building racial unity.
Three men who witnessed the riots – a Malay, a Chinese and an Indian – told BenarNews about their memories of that day.
Malay Mohsin Abdullah remembered seeing two Chinese motorcyclists killed.
"We as a nation lost. Nobody won. We all lost – Malays, Chinese, Indians – everybody," he told BenarNews. "We lost lives, property, everything. This must never be allowed to happen again."
Raj Kumar, an ethnic Indian, said that before the riot, students in his school mixed with all races – but afterward they stayed in their own groups and grew suspicious of the others.
The third man, Lim Lam Geok, said it was time for the country to move on.
"People who actually lived through the incident are getting fewer and fewer, I worry that soon without context, May 13 can be manipulated by people with a vested interest," he told BenarNews.
"People are still suspicious about the other races. To me the best way forward is to forget about May 13. It is our fathers' and grandfathers' issue."
He said it was time for the country to create a new milestone involving a different day in May – the day the PH coalition came to power that month in 2018.
"May 9 is our milestone, proof that we can transcend racial barriers to save our country," he said. "These are the stories we should be telling our children about a hopeful future.
"Of course things are a mess right now, but it is a good foundation to build on and in time people will only remember the good things."
The government seems determined to grapple with the problem.
At a press conference marking the 50th anniversary of the May 13, 1969, riots, Home Minister Muhyiddin Yassin talked about PH's efforts to improve race relations.
"This is the new government. We have promised to the people that we will be fair, we will tackle issues squarely," he said.
"We abhor any form of discrimination based on race, on religion. This is the stance of the present government, so to me this is more important than what has been in the past."


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BENARNEWS- The Myanmar government on Friday denounced Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad over comments he made suggesting the creation of a separate state for the country's persecuted Rohingya Muslims, calling it a violation of ASEAN's non-interference principle.
In an interview with Turkey's Anadolu Agency on July 26, Mahathir said Myanmar's Rohingya had faced a genocide during a brutal military-led crackdown in Rakhine state in 2017, and that those who fled their homeland should be granted the right to citizenship or given a self-governing territory.
Thousands of Rohingya were killed during the scorched-earth campaign, while some 750,000 others led to safety across the border to Bangladesh, where they now live in crowded, unsafe camps.
Mahathir's suggestion did not help the situation, said Myanmar government spokesman Zaw Htay during a news conference held by the president's office in the capital Naypyidaw.
"What the Malaysian prime minister had said is not in line with ASEAN's non-interference policy as well as with basic principles in the ASEAN Charter," he said, referring to the constituent instrument of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, a regional intergovernmental organization comprising 10 countries in Southeast Asia.
"Myanmar and ASEAN are working together on many issues in Rakhine state and what he said did not help, but instead weakened our cooperation," he said.
Zaw Htay also said that the comment could affect cooperation between the Myanmar and Bangladeshi governments on a refugee repatriation program they both agreed to in November 2017. The returns have yet to get underway because almost none of the Rohingya has expressed a willingness to cross back into Myanmar under current conditions.
"Myanmar cannot accept this kind of [interference] in other nation's internal affairs," the spokesman said.
Myint Thu address ambassador
Myint Thu, permanent secretary of Myanmar's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, summoned Malaysia's ambassador on Wednesday to express his dismay and the government's objections to Mahathir's comments.
Besides lambasting the diplomat for going against ASEAN's cardinal principle of non-interference in the internal affairs and respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the organization's member states, Myint Thu informed him that Myanmar categorically rejects allegations of genocide, the official Myanmar News Agency reported.
The exchange came just days after Myint Thu led a high-level Myanmar delegation that included representatives from ASEAN on an official visit to Bangladesh's Cox's Bazar region to meet with refugees from various camps to brief them on preparations for repatriation and inform them that full citizenship for the stateless minority was not an option.
It was the second time that Myanmar officials have visited the camps to try to convince the apprehensive Rohingya to begin the repatriation process.
About 1.2 million Rohingya refugees live in the sprawling camps in southeastern Bangladesh, some of whom fled there from previous violence in Myanmar.
The refugees have said they will not return to Myanmar unless they are granted full citizenship and given guarantees of safety in the country, which considers them illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, denies them citizenship, and subjects them to systematic discrimination.

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A Rohingya man (R) from Myanmar sells betel leaves at a market at the Kutupalong refugee camp in Ukhia, Cox's Bazar district, southeastern Bangladesh, July 21, 2019. AFP

'It can be done'
Malaysian officials voiced support for Mahathir's proposal.
Ahmad Fahmi Mohd Shamsudin, deputy president of the Muslim Youth Movement of Malaysia, a local NGO, said it would be possible to create a separate territory and citizenship for the Rohingya refugees.
"It can be done by putting pressure on and louder action by the international community, especially the ASEAN countries and communities, so this issue can be solved completely," he said in a statement to the Malay daily Sinar Harian.
The "human tragedy" that occurred in Rakhine state can only be resolved if the Myanmar government acknowledges the rights to citizenship for the Rohingya, Ahmad Fahmi said.
"The citizenship recognition will allow the ethnic group to get their rights and fair treatment based on the principle of humanity," he said. "The right to citizenship is important as it will allow the ethnic group to have access to the political system and also the socio-economy of the said government."
Syed Hamid Albar, former Malaysian foreign minister and former special envoy from the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to Myanmar, also weighed in on the issue.
"We welcomed the statement by Dr. Mahathir that urges that the 1.2 million Rohingya refugee be given full citizenship in Myanmar, or be given their own territory to form a state," he tweeted.
"The call made by an ASEAN leader has to be fully supported to solve the ongoing crisis with humanity and justice," he wrote.
Syed Hamid went on to point out that Myanmar originally comprised many separate states, and that British colonial rule had forced various ethnic groups to become one nation.
"And now they should be treated as citizens or [have territory returned to them] to allow them to form a state," he tweeted.
'Myanmar's internal issue'
Bangladeshi officials took a different tack, however.
"Our prime minister has made it clear that Bangladesh does not support harming Myanmar's sovereignty. This is our official position," Bangladesh Information Minister Hasan Mahmud told BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service, on Friday.
A foreign ministry who spoke on condition of anonymity because he had not been authorized to speak publicly on the issue said the country does not support giving the Rohingya a separate state.
"Rohingya are people from Myanmar," he said. "What Bangladesh only wants is the safe, voluntary, and sustainable return of all Rohingya who entered Bangladesh."
"It is Myanmar's internal issue whether they will grant citizenship to the Rohingya," the official added.


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BENARNEWS- Malaysian civic groups prodded Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad on Wednesday to set a clear timeline for handing power to ex-rival Anwar Ibrahim, and warned that failure to do so could break up the coalition that helped him regain power.
Mahathir, 94, took power after leading the then-opposition Pakatan Harapan (PH) alliance to a historic landslide victory in the May 2018 general election following an agreement that he would step down within two to three years and hand over the country's leadership to Anwar.
But mudslinging among supporters of Anwar, president of the People's Justice Party (PKR), the biggest party in Pakatan ruling bloc, and his deputy Azmin Ali, the current economic minister, has raised questions about the feasibility of that agreement.
"The current feud in PKR ... is causing much concern among both our citizens and the international community as it has the potential to break up the coalition and cast our nation into political disarray," the civic groups said in an open letter to Mahathir.
The groups, including Bersih 2.0 (the Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections), the Malaysia Action Coalition (GBM) and Malaysian Islamic Youth Movement, demanded a "clear transition plan."
"We call on Tun Mahathir [to] set a date, somewhere between a year from now to the latest May 9, 2021, to hand over power to Dato Seri Anwar Ibrahim," the groups said, using honorifics for the two politicians.
Although reports indicated that no time frame was stated in the agreement, Mahathir himself had promised on several occasions that the transfer of power would take place "between 2 to 3 years" from his election.
Mahathir made the promise after he and Anwar agreed to join forces and lead Pakatan against the Barisan Nasional coalition on the May 2018 polls, when Anwar was still in prison serving time over a sodomy conviction. Days after the election, Anwar was released from prison after the king granted him a pardon.
Anwar, 71, and Azmin, 54, both considered front-runners to succeed Mahathir, had verbally attacked each other after the release of a video purportedly showing a man who resembled Azmin having sex at a hotel with another man.
Azmin has denied allegations that he was the other man in the video.
Mahathir, meanwhile, told reporters last month that he would stick with the agreed plan to transfer the prime ministerial post to Anwar.
"Well, I have already agreed that when I step down, he will take over from me as prime minister," Mahathir said, referring to Anwar, his ex-protégé-turned-enemy-turned-ally. "That is a promise I made and I will stay with the promise."
The Malaysian leader is on a two-day visit through Thursday to the Japanese city of Fukuoka.
The feud within PKR unfolded into an exchange of sharp words after police detained Anwar's top aide last month on suspicion of involvement in the dissemination of the sex video.
Amid the bitter infighting, former cabinet minister Rafidah Aziz urged Mahathir on Wednesday to continue his governance and "stop talking about transition [of power]."
"Let's stop talking about this issue because the people out there – investors, people with the potential to become our business partner – are not sure where the country is heading," Rafidah said in a speech in the administrative capital Putrajaya. "The transition problem has been identified as one of the causes of uncertainties."
The open letter from the civic groups "makes voters think about what happened to the promises" that Mahathir made during the electoral campaign, Azly Rahman, a U.S.-based academic and author of books on Malaysia's political, social and educational affairs, told BenarNews on Wednesday.
"The question that nobody can answer except Mahathir himself is: Who does he want to install as his successor, who would ensure his safe exit?" Azly said. "And the question for Anwar is: Will he be the chosen one?"
"In Malaysia, everything is a mystery. Of whims and fancies and sustaining of political dynasties," he said. "It has not been a healthy democracy."


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BENARNEWS- lIndonesian President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo and Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad discussed on Friday the need to put up a united front against European "discrimination" of palm oil, of which the two countries are the world's top producers, officials said.
Jokowi met with Mahathir in Malaysia's administrative capital as the Indonesian leader was making his first foreign visit after winning reelection this year.
The Indonesian foreign ministry said via Twitter that the two leaders discussed a "united stand in the fight against palm oil discrimination," among other issues, while the Malaysian foreign ministry said in a statement that they talked about "cooperation in [the] palm oil industry." Both ministries did not elaborate.
In March, the 28-nation European Union (EU) said that palm oil should be phased out of renewable transportation fuels over concerns that palm plantations contribute to deforestation. The EU also said it planned to impose anti-subsidy duties of 8 percent to 18 percent on palm biodiesel from Indonesia.
In a news release that same month, the Indonesian government announced it would assess its relationships with European Union nations who had taken action against palm oil exports.
"If the discrimination against palm oil continues, we are afraid this will affect years of good relations between Indonesia and the EU, especially at this time when we are conducting intensive discussions on Indonesia-European Union Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement," Coordinating Minister for the Economy Darmin Nasution said at the time.
In April, both the Indonesian and Malaysian governments sent a letter to the EU in which they criticized the European bloc's decision to phase out palm oil as a green fuel.
Palm oil is used in soap and skin care products, biofuels and a variety of food products including margarine, chocolate and peanut butter. The neighboring Southeast Asian nations supply about 60 million tons of palm oil annually or 85 percent of the world's output, according to government figures.
Before meeting with Mahathir on Friday, Jokowi told a Malaysian television channel that the two nations must work together to address "discrimination" by the European Union against palm oil products.
"I reiterate once again that Indonesia and Malaysia should work together to combat palm oil discrimination," Jokowi said in the interview, according to Bernama, the Malaysian state news agency.
Plantation owners in Indonesia, meanwhile, have been accused of failing to pay billions of dollars in fines resulting from wildfires caused by land-clearing practices.
Earlier this week, Jokowi issued a permanent moratorium on such practices. One day later, on Tuesday, he threatened to sack officials fighting forest fires if they failed to extinguish the flames.
"I phoned the military commander and the chief of police to tell them to replace those who can't resolve forest and land fires," Jokowi said at the time.
Other discussions
In addition to their palm oil discussion, the leaders also discussed maritime and land boundaries along with protections for Indonesian domestic workers in Malaysia, according to news release from Malaysia's ministry of foreign affairs. Without going into detail on any of the discussions, the news release also said Mahathir and Jokowi "touched on" Timor-Leste's application to join the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
"Yes it was a good discussion," Mahathir told reporters about their one hour meeting from behind the steering wheel of a red Malaysian-made Proton car before driving Jokowi, who did not comment, to lunch.
After wrapping up their meeting and Jokowi's two-day visit, the two leaders traveled to Singapore to attend National Day celebrations and did not hold a press conference.
Jokowi arrived in Kuala Lumpur on Thursday night for his first official trip to visit another country's leader since winning re-election in May. In June 2018, he played host to Mahathir who was making his first official foreign trip after assuming the prime minister's post following the Pakatan Harapan stunning election upset a month earlier.
Posting on twitter from Putrajaya, the home of Malaysia's government, Jokowi recounted the successes in the fields of petroleum, lumber, and natural resources and laid out a vision for the next step forward.
"Next, have faith, we shall develop the foundation of quality human resource that will master knowledge and technology," he tweeted without elaborating.
Analyst James Chin, Asian studies director of Tasmania University, said the visit is normal for the leaders.
"As neighbors you don't really have a choice if you share a border. There are of course a lot of outstanding issues, there are border issues, people smuggling issues, maid issues but in general, Malaysia has a good relation with Indonesia and Jokowi does not see Malaysia as a problem," he told BenarNews.

Meanwhile academician Ahmad Marthada Mohamed of the University Utara Malaysia said the visit was a recognition of Malaysia's relationship.
"It shows Indonesia commitment to Malaysia. Indonesia appreciates us in a diplomatic context and the visit will forge better ties between the two counties," he said.
In 2017, trade between the two countries totaled U.S. $16.89 billion, making Malaysia Indonesia's seventh-largest trading partner and third-biggest among ASEAN nations after Singapore and Thailand.


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BENARNEWS- Malaysia filed criminal charges against 17 current and former Goldman Sachs executives on Friday, including an ex-vice chairman who is now president of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, as part of a multibillion-dollar corruption probe at state fund 1MDB, authorities said.
Goldman Sachs served as underwriter of three bond sales that raised $6.5 billion for 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), according to court documents filed by the U.S. Department of Justice.
The DOJ earlier alleged that more than $2.7 billion of the proceeds was fraudulently siphoned off by high-level officials of the sovereign wealth fund and their associates from 2009 until 2014.
"Criminal charges were filed today," Malaysian Attorney General Tommy Thomas said in a statement, explaining that because of the severity of the scheme to defraud, "custodial sentences and criminal fines will be sought against the accused."
Among the individuals charged was Richard Gnodde, CEO of Goldman Sachs International, and John Michael Evans, who was the bank's vice chairman until his retirement in 2013. Two years later, Evans became president of the Alibaba Group, Beijing's internet titan, leading the company's global expansion beyond China.
Gnodde and Evans had directed Goldman Sachs subsidiaries in Malaysia.
All 17 individuals were charged under a law that holds senior executives responsible for any offenses that may have been committed during their tenure, Thomas said. The charges were filed in absentia.
If convicted, those charged could face prison sentences of up to 10 years and fines of at least 1 million ringgit (U.S. $239,000).
Thomas said the fresh charges were related to similar ones filed in December 2018 against three Goldman Sachs subsidiaries and their key employees Tim Leissner and Roger Ng, who were charged together with 1MDB official Jasmine Loo Ai Swan, who is at large, and fugitive businessman Low Taek Jho (better known as Jho Low).
The U.S.-based Goldman Sachs earned about $600 million (2.5 billion ringgit) in fees paid for by 1MDB from the bond sales, according to court documents. The investment bank previously denied allegations of wrongdoing.
"We believe the charges announced today, along with those against three Goldman Sachs entities announced in December last year, are misdirected and will be vigorously defended," a spokesman for Goldman told BBC News on Friday.
In May, Malaysia extradited Ng to the United States for 10 months face criminal charges linked to 1MDB, which was founded in 2009 by former Prime Minister Najib Razak ostensibly to spur economic development in the country.
Najib himself faces dozens of criminal charges, with Malaysian prosecutors accusing him of pocketing $681 million (2.85 billion ringgit) from the sovereign wealth fund. He has pleaded not guilty.
Ng, a Malaysian, had been detained in Kuala Lumpur since Nov. 1, 2018, after DOJ announced the charges against him. He was accused of laundering up to $4.5 billion (18.8 billion ringgit) of funds diverted from 1MDB. The money was allegedly pumped into luxury New York properties and used to acquire other ostentatious items including a luxury yacht, expensive artwork and a jet, DOJ officials said.
Ng was charged in the United States for his role in the alleged conspiracy to launder 1MDB funds. He also faces charges of violating America's Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
Jho Low, whose whereabouts remain unknown, and Leissner were previously charged in the United States. Leissner pleaded guilty to violating anti-bribery laws and conspiring to launder money.
Thomas said Leissner, a former partner of Goldman Sachs in Asia, agreed to forfeit U.S. $43.7 million (182.9 million ringgit).
Commenting on the fresh charges, Malaysian lawyer Syahredzan Johan said Kuala Lumpur had the option to go to Interpol to seek assistance in capturing the 17 individuals who were charged on Friday.
That, however, would require cooperation of the countries where the individuals are residing, Syahredzan said
"It should not be a problem since there are mechanisms to facilitate that, but of course, we need to know where they are, to begin with," he said, "and that is usually the difficult part."


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BENARNEWS- Ex-Prime Minister Najib Razak will stand trial next week in a second corruption case tied to the 1MDB financial scandal, a Malaysian court ruled Tuesday as it rejected his legal team's final attempt to delay the proceedings, local media reported.
A five-member Federal Court panel in Putrajaya ruled unanimously that Najib would stand trial Aug. 19 on 25 abuse of power and money-laundering charges.
Led by Chief Justice Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat, the panel upheld previous high and appellate court decisions that Najib's second trail would begin even as his other trial continues on seven charges related to a subsidiary of state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).
Issuing the panel's ruling, the chief justice said the trial judge's decision was correct, according to Malaysian state news agency Bernama.
"[W]e agree with the Court of Appeal that there is no error. There is no reason for us to intervene," Tengku Maimun said in court.
The upcoming trial marks the first time the former leader will face charges directly stemming from the alleged theft of hundreds of millions of dollars from 1MDB, a state investment fund Najib established 10 years ago in his dual role as prime minister and finance minister, as a vehicle for spurring economic development in the country.
The former prime minister could face as many as three more trials on 10 additional charges.
During Tuesday's courtroom proceedings, Attorney General Tommy Thomas told the judges that the prosecution's case against Najib on seven charges in the trial in the SRC International case was wrapping up and he expected to finish it by Friday.
"Even if the prosecution cannot close on Aug. 16, the spillover the following week will only be for a few days," the attorney general said, according to Bernama.
After the original February date was delayed, Najib appeared in court on April 3 for the start of the SRC trial related to the transfer of 42 million ringgit (U.S. $10 million) from the 1MDB subsidiary. Prosecutors allege he received the money between Dec. 24, 2014, and March 2, 2015, and transferred the funds to accounts held by or partners with SRC International.
Najib is standing trial on three counts of criminal breach of trust, three counts of money laundering and one count of power tied to the transfer of SRC International funds.
Once the prosecution team finishes presenting testimony and its evidence to the court, the trial judge will determine if there is a prima facie case against Najib and if so, set dates for the defendant to present his case, according to officials.
Lead defense attorney Muhammad Shafee Abdullah argued Najib would not get fair trials if both cases proceed at the same time, adding that both sides would need about a month to prepare their submissions at the end of the prosecution phase of the ongoing trial, according to the news agency.
"We can't split ourselves and neither can the accused split himself," Shafee told the court about trying to defend Najib in two trials at the same time, according to the Malay Mail.
Shafee was charged last year with two counts of money laundering and two counts of tax fraud for a pair of transactions totaling 9.5 million ringgit ($2.26 million) between September 2013 and February 2014. He could face up to 40 years in prison and fines up to $20 million ringgit ($4.76 million) if convicted of all charges.
At that time, the attorney called the charges politically motivated to remove him from Najib's defense team.
1MDB trial
The Aug. 19 trial centers on four counts of violating the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission Act and 21 counts of money laundering involving 1MDB funds totaling 2.28 billion ringgit (U.S. $543 million), according to Bernama.
Filed in September 2018, the charges allege that the money was transferred from the 1MDB fund to Najib's personal bank accounts when he served as prime minister.
1MDB has been the target of lawsuits and criminal investigations around the globe after billions of dollars allegedly went missing from the fund. U.S. Justice Department officials have described the 1MDB case as "the worst kleptocracy scandal in recent times."
Najib served as Malaysia's prime minister until May 2018 when the upstart Pakatan Harapan coalition pulled off an electoral upset and took over the government. While in power, Najib was cleared of wrongdoing involving 1MDB by then-Attorney General Apandi Ali.
Najib's successor as prime minister, Mahathir Mohamad, appointed Thomas and opened new investigations into 1MDB, leading to the charges against Najib and others, including his wife, Rosmah Mansor, and financier Low Taek Jho (better known as Jho Low).
Jho Low, a fugitive, has been charged with receiving funds and transferring funds totaling 1 billion ringgit ($238 million). The government seized and later sold his $250 million yacht, the Equanimity.


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BENARNEWS- Three cabinet ministers urged Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad on Wednesday to expel controversial Indian Muslim preacher Zakir Naik from Malaysia over what they said were inflammatory speeches undermining race relations in the country.
Xavier Jayakumar, the minister of Water, Land and Natural Resources, said he told a cabinet meeting that Naik should be sent away because the preacher's permanent resident status was not a license "to shoot his mouth off when he pleases."
"Having raised the matter with my fellow colleagues in the cabinet this morning, I along with others have expressed our stance that action against him must be taken and that Naik should not be allowed to remain in the country," Jayakumar said in a statement after the meeting.
"The prime minister has noted the concerns that were raised and will consider our position in his decision-making process."
Gobind Singh Deo, the minister of Communication and Multimedia, and Human Resources Minister M. Kula Segaran issued a joint statement echoing Jayakumar's call that Naik be expelled.
The two MPs expressed concern over speeches and statements by Naik "which have been inflammatory in nature."
"We therefore express our objections to Zakir Naik ... holding any further events here in Malaysia or making further statements which impact on race relations and public order," they said.
A video of a sermon that Naik gave on Aug. 8 during a speaking tour of Kelantan, a conservative and predominantly Muslim state in Malaysia, showed him allegedly questioning the loyalty of the country's ethnic Indian community. He suggested they trusted India's government more than they trusted Mahathir.
In the same sermon, Naik also remarked that another minority group, Malaysian Chinese, were "guests" in the country and should be asked to "go back to China."
"You know someone called me a guest. So I said, before me, the Chinese were the guests. If you want the new guest to go first, ask the old guest to go back," Naik said, referring to calls for him to be sent back to India where he is wanted for alleged crimes including supporting terrorism and tax evasion.
Indian authorities accused Naik, a televangelist preacher, of inspiring some of the militants who carried out an Islamic State-linked terrorist attack at a café in Dhaka, where 29 people, including 20 hostages, were killed in July 2016.
In November 2017, India's Hindu nationalist-led government said Naik faced charges of money laundering and inciting hatred through his sermons broadcast on Peace TV. India and Bangladesh have banned his channel.
Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman, Malaysia's minister of youth and sports, reprimanded Naik for what he described as the preacher's dismissal of national unity and loyalty to the country.
"An attack against the Chinese and Indian brothers and sisters is an attack against all Malaysians," the minister told reporters when asked if he agreed with his fellow cabinet members.
The ministers did not call for Naik, who has Saudi Arabian citizenship, to be deported to India to face the criminal charges.
Details on Naik's permanent residency in Malaysia are unclear but reports claim it was awarded to him in 2012, when he first visited the country. A year later, the government of then-Prime Minister Najib Razak presented him an "Islamic Role Model" award.
'Shut up'
Muslim Malays, along with other indigenous people, make up 69.3 percent of Malaysia's 32.6 million population while ethnic Chinese comprise 22.8 percent and ethnic Indians consist of 6.9 percent, according to figures provided by the Statistics Department last month.
On Tuesday, Persatuan Patriot Kebangsaan, an association of former military officers, released a statement telling Naik to "shut up."
"Questioning the loyalty and the honesty of the ethnic Malaysian Indians is irresponsible. Many of them, along with other races, fought for this country," said group president Arshad Raji, a retired brigadier general.
That same day, the preacher defended himself, saying others had twisted his praises of the Malaysian government's fair treatment of minorities.
"The allegations reported in the media are mischievous and designed to not only politicize me but also create religious disharmony within the community. Recordings of my talks will reveal that the reality is the opposite of what is being alleged," Naik said.
BenarNews reached out to Naik's lawyer on Wednesday to respond to the ministers' statements.
"I cannot comment. My client asked his defense team to stand down," lawyer Buzze Azam said.
Support from Mahathir
Prime Minister Mahathir has supported Naik remaining in Malaysia, announcing in July 2018 that Malaysia would not deport the preacher.
"As long as he is not causing trouble he will not be deported. He is a Malaysian permanent resident," Mahathir said at the time.
On Tuesday, before hearing from his cabinet members, Mahathir stuck by his previous statement.
"The problem is that the government could not send Naik back to India because he faces the risk of being killed. But if there is country willing to take him, they are welcome to do so," he said.
Last year, Mahathir led the opposition Pakatan Harapan (Alliance of Hope) coalition to a stunning victory in a general election. The alliance, anchored by the multiracial People's Justice Party, had pledged in its campaign platform to defend the rights of all Malaysians regardless of race or religion.


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BENARNEWS- Malaysia renewed the operating license for Australian-based Lynas on Thursday, allowing it to continue to process rare earths and to build a permanent disposal facility for low-level radioactive waste in the country.
Lynas, the world's largest rare-earth producer outside of China, operates a U.S. $800-million processing plant in Kuantan, capital of Malaysia's Pahang state. The company and the Malaysian government had been entangled in a dispute during the past few months over one of the plant's processes that produces radioactive residue.
The renewal was a shorter-than-expected six months and conditioned on Lynas moving that part of the process overseas within four years – something the company had already announced it would do – and finding a solution for storing the radioactive waste in the meantime.
"Lynas has to identify a specific site to build a Permanent Disposal Facility and produce written approval from the state government to use the site for the PDF," said a press release issued by the Atomic Energy Licensing Board (AELB), announcing the six-month extension.
"Or, produce written confirmation from authorities of any country to remove Water Leach Purification residue to that country," it went on to say.
The permit's approval could have global repercussions, analysts said. It came amid anxiety over a trade war between the United States and China, which could leverage its dominance of rare earths – minerals such as cerium, lanthanum and neodymium – that are used in electronics and smartphones, jet-fighter engines, Tomahawk cruise missiles and space-based satellites.
Lynas' license was due to expire on Sept. 2. Renewals of such licenses usually give the company three years to operate, local reports said.
In June, Lynas said it would move a portion of its ore processing plant out of Malaysia by 2025, addressing earlier conditions imposed by Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad for continuing operations in the country. But the Australian government has said it would not accept Lynas' radioactive waste.
Lynas employs more than 650 people in Malaysia and Australia. It mines rare-earth minerals out of Mount Weld, a collapsed volcano in Australia, and ships them to be refined to the sprawling industrial complex in Kuantan.
Amanda Lacaze, Lynas' CEO, told reporters last week that the company expected to announce a Western Australian site for processing within months, the Sydney Morning Herald reported Thursday.
The report said the plant was expected to begin operating early 2023.
Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad told media in Fukoka, Japan in early August that the government could not kick Lynas out of the country just because some people did not accept the studies done by experts.
He said foreign investors were watching the government's moves about Lynas.
"We invited them to invest. If we then kicked them out, others will then say the country made a promise but, when there was a problem, we kicked them out," Mahathir was quoted by national news agency Bernama as saying. "We cannot do that. ... If we chase out the Lynas foreign investor, others will not come to Malaysia."
Meanwhile, Malaysian environmental activists expressed dismay over the government's decision to extend Lynas' license.
"Allowing Lynas to continue operating and generating more radioactive waste is a serious betrayal of the people's trust," said Tan Bun Teet, chairman of the Save Malaysia Stop Lynas.


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BENARNEWS- A Malaysian judge on Monday postponed the second and most significant corruption trial of former Prime Minister Najib Razak to allow prosecutors to wrap up their presentation of witnesses in his first trial tied to the multibillion-dollar 1MDB financial scandal.
Najib, who has denied all the charges against him, faces 21 counts of money-laundering and four of abuse-of-power charges in this second case. He has been slammed with a total 42 charges in five separate criminal cases filed against him since his electoral defeat in May last year.
Judge Collin Lawrence Sequerah of the High Court in Kuala Lumpur said the hearing would start next Monday, Aug. 26, to allow prosecutors to complete their presentation of witnesses in the previous trial related to SRC International, a 1MDB subsidiary. But the judged asked prosecution and defense attorneys to "check again" with him on the schedule on Thursday.
"I maintain that the trial starts on Monday. I can be reasonable and stand down, maybe half a day for you to go through the documents," the judge said.
The upcoming trial marks the first time the former leader will face charges directly stemming from the alleged theft of hundreds of millions of dollars from 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), a state investment fund Najib established 10 years ago purportedly as a vehicle for spurring economic development in the country.
In the first trial, Najib faces seven charges related to accusations that 42 million ringgit (about U.S. $10.3 million) was illegally diverted into his personal bank accounts from SRC International.
Malaysian prosecutors accuse him of pocketing a total of $681 million (2.85 billion ringgit) from the sovereign wealth fund. The U.S. Justice Department, which has also filed criminal cases linked to the 1MDB scandal, called it the "worst kleptocracy scandal in recent times."
If found guilty, Najib could be sentenced to decades in prison and fined millions of dollars.


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BENARNEWS- Malaysia has temporarily banned a controversial Indian-born Muslim preacher from delivering sermons, officials said Tuesday, amid complaints that his speeches carried racist comments about the multicultural nation that is sheltering him from prosecution in India.
Zakir Naik, 53, is the founder of the Dubai-based satellite television network Peace TV, which has more than 284,000 subscribers on YouTube. In 2016, Naik left India, where he faces money-laundering charges, and subsequently obtained permanent residency in Malaysia.
"Police have issued a directive to stop him from delivering a speech as this will allow us time to investigate the reports filed by several parties pertaining to the matter," Inspector General of Police Abdul Hamid Bador told the state-run news agency Bernama, referring to Naik.
"My state police chiefs will advise those who plan to host Zakir [Naik] to scrap the plan," he said.
Abdul Hamid gave his comments hours after a document containing the order was leaked on social media.
Asmawati Ahmad, head of the police's corporate communications, said the order was issued to avoid any controversy and disharmony in Malaysia.
Muslim Malays, along with other indigenous people, make up 69 percent of Malaysia's 33 million people, while ethnic Chinese comprise 23 percent and ethnic Indians, 7 percent, according to official figures.
"To avoid potential tension among multiracial Malaysians, all state police chiefs have been instructed to advise parties who wish to organize any programs involving Zakir Naik to abort the plan," Asmawati said.
"All activities involving Zakir Naik at all states have been banned," she said.
'Go back'
In November 2017, Indian officials said Naik faced charges of money laundering and inciting hatred through his sermons broadcast on Peace TV. India and Bangladesh have banned his channel but videos of his previous sermons are available on YouTube.
Indian authorities had accused Naik of inspiring some of the militants who carried out an Islamic State-linked terrorist attack at a café in Dhaka, where 29 people, including 20 hostages, were killed in July 2016.
The Malaysian government has in the past appeared reluctant to take moves against Naik, with Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad saying that the preacher might end up being killed if Malaysia agreed to India's request for extradition.
But on Sunday, Mahathir told reporters that Naik had crossed the line when he began talking about racial politics.
"It's quite clear that he wants to participate in racial politics in Malaysia," Mahathir said. "He was talking about sending the Chinese back to China, Indians back to India, that's for me a political move."
On Friday, Mahathir even suggested Malaysia could take away Naik's permanent resident status "if he does something that is detrimental to the well-being of the nation," reports said.
In an event sponsored by Muslim political party PAS in conservative Kelantan state, Naik said that Hindus in the Muslim-majority were more loyal to the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi than to Mahathir, the Malaysian leader.
He continued by saying that if he must return to his home country of India, Malaysians of Chinese ethnicity, whom he called "old guests," should also "go back" to where they came from.
After Naik's remarks, police received 115 complaints, authorities said.
Police had questioned Naik twice over his speech in Kelantan, including on Monday when he was interrogated for 10 hours at the country's Federal police headquarters in Kuala Lumpur, officials told BenarNews.
Authorities said Naik was being investigated under Section 504 of the Penal Code for "insult with the intention to provoke a breach of the peace," which carries a penalty of two years in prison or a fine or both.
'Inside job'
It was not the first time that Naik's statements had generated controversy.
In one online broadcast, Naik suggested in July 2008 that al Qaeda was not behind the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks that killed almost 3,000 people in the United States. Instead, he claimed, the terror attacks were the result of an "inside job."
After he was questioned by police on Monday, Naik issued a public apology and denied being a racist.
"Even though I have clarified myself, I feel I owe an apology to everyone who feels hurt because of this misunderstanding. I do not want any of you to harbor ill feelings towards me," Naik said in a statement.
"It was never my intention to upset any individual or community," he said. "That is against the basic tenets of Islam, and I would like to convey my heartfelt apologies for this misunderstanding."


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BENARNEWS- Malaysian police arrested 100 Chinese nationals suspected of involvement in an illegal online gaming syndicate that targeted gamblers from China, officials said Wednesday, as countries across Southeast Asia crack down on unlicensed gaming operations.
Police said they arrested all of the Chinese suspects along with a Malaysian suspect during simultaneous raids on four bungalows in a posh neighborhood of Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday morning. The 101 in custody, who range from 19 to 65 years old, were also suspected of belonging to an unlicensed stock investment syndicate, authorities said.
"All of those detained were foreign nationals while the victims were from China," Mohamad Hedzir Hussin, assistant director of the Malaysian federal police's Secret Societies, Gambling and Vice Division,  told reporters at the location.
"From the four premises, police seized 66 laptops, 23 personal computers, 555 mobile phones, 11 modems and eight routers," he said.
Police had monitored alleged members of the syndicate for a month before launching Wednesday's raids at the bungalows, rental properties believed to have housed servers for the online gambling website. The operation, which included public lotteries, may have netted up to 72,000 ringgit (U.S. $17,244) a day in profits for the syndicate, authorities said.
"The syndicate targets victims in China and all transactions, payments are made through WeChat Pay as well as banks there. The number of victims is estimated to be over 1,000 people," Hedzir said.
All of the suspects are being held and investigated under Malaysia's Common Gaming Houses Act as well as under the Immigration Act for staying in the country without proper travel papers, officials said. Among potential punishments, the suspects could face six months to five years in prison.
Tightly controlled premises
The Chinese citizens working for the syndicate had their movements confined to the bungalows where the raids took place, according to a preliminary police investigation, Hedzir said.
"They were prohibited from leaving or entering the other units. Food and beverages were believed to be managed by the syndicate ...," he said.
According to Mohamad Rahim Kamaludin, an academic and criminologist at the National University of Malaysia, the international syndicate employing Chinese made Malaysia a base of operations because of easy access to the Southeast Asian country.
"The three-month visitation [visa] is often misused. The syndicate is a large network whose members constantly change," he told BenarNews. "So, they have nothing to fear."
Wednesday's arrests were the latest in Malaysia involving suspected Chinese members of an international gambling syndicate. More than 100 other Chinese nationals were arrested early this year in connection with similar illegal operations.
Predominantly Muslim Malaysia and other countries in the region have strict laws regulating gambling.
In recent months, authorities in the Philippines, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia have moved in to arrest hundreds of Chinese nationals suspected of involvement in unlicensed online gambling operations.
China, which has banned online gambling, urged the Philippines on Wednesday to ban all gaming on the internet as part of Beijing's efforts to crack down on money laundering and other criminal activities, which, it alleges, are associated with the industry.
Regulated casinos in the Manila area and elsewhere in the Philippines cater to large numbers of customers who fly in from China to gamble.


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BENARNEWS- The United States has overtaken China as Malaysia's top investor in manufacturing, government figures show, amid a trade war between the world's two largest economies that is diverting investments into Southeast Asia.
China has been the leading investor in Malaysia during the last three years but the United States surpassed the Asian giant in the first half of 2019, according to latest approved data on foreign direct investment (FDI) in the manufacturing sector released by the Malaysian finance ministry this week.
Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng said on Monday that investment in Malaysian manufacturing had jumped more than 74 percent to 33.1 billion ringgit (U.S. $7.9 billion) from January to June compared to the same period last year with nearly a third, or 11.7 billion ringgit (U.S. $2.8 billion), coming from the United States.
This made it "the biggest source of approved manufacturing FDI during the period," Lim said in a statement.
China was the second biggest foreign source with 4.8 billion ringgit (U.S. 1.1 billion) in investments, he said without providing comparative figures for the two countries.
But the Malaysian Investment Development Authority (MIDA) last week released figures showing that during the January-June period in 2018, American investments amounted to U.S. $762.1 million while Chinese investments totaled U.S. $4.75 billion.
No reasons were provided by the government for the investment shift but some experts think it may be a short-term development, attributing it to the ongoing U.S.-China trade war. U.S. President Donald Trump has been levying tariffs on a variety of Chinese goods, while China has been retaliating with trade barriers of its own.
In a bid to avert the soaring tariffs imposed on Beijing, some companies are relocating parts of their production lines from China to Southeast Asia, such as Vietnam and Malaysia, reports have said.
"China has lost FDI [foreign direct investment] as production for export to the U.S. has been affected by those tariffs," University of Malaya economist Rajah Rasiah told BenarNews.
He noted that investments to the United States had risen primarily through the relocation of firms out of China to circumvent tariffs.
"However, to me this is a short-term phenomenon. In the long run, once the costs of production among these firms rise owing to higher tariffs and U.S. wages, it will undermine exports as they would become expensive," he said.
Rasiah felt that unless the United States returned to its former tariff regime, "it will face a recession and with that an eventual fall in FDI. Meanwhile, China would be exporting to other countries, and through other countries to the U.S."
A changing investment picture
In a report last week, the Malaysian central bank acknowledged "early signs of several global electrical and electronics manufacturers indicating intentions to relocate operations to Malaysia" but said this was "unlikely to offset the adverse impact from unresolved trade conflicts in the immediate term given the long lead time required to reorient supply chains."
The United States has traditionally been a big investor in Malaysia's electrical and electronic industries and the government expects to cash in on the U.S.-China trade dispute to draw more investments.
"We expect U.S. investments in the E&E [electrical and electronics] sector in Malaysia to continue to grow because of the strong local ecosystem, particularly in [the state of] Penang, and also partly due to decisions made by investors as a result of the strains in the relationship between the U.S. and China," Ong Kian Ming, the deputy minister of international trade and industry, told BenarNews.
On the other hand, there is some uncertainty about overseas investments from China, whose economy is slowing down and as Beijing braces for another round of stiff tariffs to be imposed by the United States, beginning in September.
International credit rating agency Moody's Investors Service warned last week that China's overseas investment growth would likely slow or even decline in the next few years.
Moody's said Chinese infrastructure companies would be more selective when investing in projects outside the country, according to a U.S. news channel CNBC.
Ada Li, senior credit officer at Moody's, said projects under China's One Belt, One Road (OBOR) initiative would also likely slow in the next few years. She noted that the country's foreign direct investments for the first half of 2019 had only grown 0.1 percent from the year before.
Additionally, Chinese state-owned companies, which typically participate in such projects, are now shifting their investment focus away from overseas markets and back to the mainland, she said, according to CNBC.
Malaysia is among key participants in Beijing's OBOR initiative that stretches to 70 countries. It aims to build a 21st-century Silk Road by connecting the countries through networks of railways, bridges and ports, linking China with Africa, Europe and Southeast Asia.
Despite the uncertainty, Finance Minister Lim indicated in a speech earlier this month that Chinese investment interest had not been waning.
"We are now seeing more investors and officials from China making inquiries and prospecting for new opportunities and new areas for collaboration in Malaysia," he said at a forum on the One Belt, One Road initiative in Kuala Lumpur.


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BENARNEWS- Malaysia's poverty rate is much higher than the country's official figure, a U.N. expert said Friday as he questioned the Southeast Asian country's claim that it has almost eradicated poverty.
The government claims that the poverty rate is 0.4 percent but Philip Alston, the U.N. special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, said it could be up to 20 percent, based on independent analyses.
"The official claim that poverty has been eradicated or exists merely in small pockets in rural areas, is incorrect and has crippled policymaking," Alston told a news conference in Kuala Lumpur at the end of an 11-day visit to the country.
"The government's official figures would make it the world champion in eliminating poverty ... but I think it's pretty obvious that that's not the case."
Alston said a range of rigorous independent analyses had suggested "a more realistic poverty rate of 16 to 20 percent, and that about 9 percent of households survive on less than 2,000 ringgit (U.S. $479) per month."
Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said the government would study the claim.
"We will study what they say to find out whether it is true or not," the state-run news agency Bernama quoted him as telling reporters at a fundraising dinner.
Just after Alston's news conference, Minister of Economic Affairs Mohamed Azmin Ali expressed "disappointment" at Alston's statement and defended the official statistics, saying they were derived from internationally accepted standards, using figures from a handbook published by the United Nations.
"We stand by our absolute poverty rate, which is currently recorded at 0.4 percent of total households in 2016 or 24,700 households,"Azmin said in a statement. The country's current official poverty rate, which fell from 49 percent in 1970, implies that poverty has been nearly wiped out.
Alston also described the national poverty line of 980 ringgit ($234) per household monthly as "tragically low" because it would mean that an urban family of four would have to survive on less than $2 per person each day.
The undercount has led to too many underfunded programs in place, affecting indigenous people who are experiencing the highest poverty rate, he said.
He also expressed concern over the child poverty rate in Malaysia, which he said was three times the national poverty rate, saying the government does not appear to have an adequate support system for addressing the issue.
He cited a 2018 UNICEF survey of low-income flats in Malaysia's capital Kuala Lumpur and neighboring Selangor state which he said found 15 percent of children younger than 5 were underweight.

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U.N. Special Rapporteur Philip Alston (right) speaks to low-income families in Kuala Lumpur during his 11-day visit, Aug. 23, 2019. [Bassam Khawaja/U.N.]

In June, the local Khazanah Research Institute published a report indicating structural weaknesses with the official poverty measures used to arrive at the government statistics. Among others, it concluded that more Malaysians would be poorer if adjustments were made to reflect reality.
Alston recommended that a "meaningful" poverty line, consistent with international standards, be adopted urgently in Malaysia, saying the current level is "not consistent with the cost of living or household income."


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BENARNEWS- The Indonesian couple who killed 23 people in suicide bombings in the southern Philippines in January travelled there with the help of two Indonesian nationals based in Sabah, Malaysia, police said Monday.
The Jan. 27 twin bombings at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Cathedral in Jolo, the capital of Sulu province, were among the worst acts of terror in the Philippines in years. The attacks, which injured more than 100, took almost a year of planning, Philippine authorities say.
They allege that the bombings were planned by Hatib Hajan Sawadjaan, who took over as IS leader in the Philippines after Isnilon Hapilon was killed in the battle of Marawi nearly two years ago.
In July, Indonesian National Police spokesman Dedi Prasetyo identified the suicide bombers as Rullie Rian Zeke and Ulfah Handayani Saleh, a married couple deported from Turkey in 2017 after they allegedly tried to cross its border to enter IS-controlled territory in Syria.
Malaysian authorities declined to specify when Rullie and Ulfah entered Malaysia, but said the couple hatched their plans within a month of getting to know suspected extremists Mohd Ali Suhari, 21, and Marwan Harun, 25, both Indonesians based in the Malaysian state of Sabah on the island of Borneo.
"With the help of Ali and Marwan, Rullie and Ulfah took a boat ride to Sabah and from the east coast city of Semporna, they took a speedboat to the southern Philippine and later to Jolo," Malaysia's counter-terror chief Ayob Khan Mydin Pitchay told BenarNews.
The Indonesian couple became acquainted with Ali and Marwan through their son-in-law, Andi Baso, (alias Zikri or Radit), who travelled with them to the Philippines and is believed to be there still, Ayob told BenarNews.
The two other men, who had been living in Malaysia for years without proper immigration documents, were both arrested – Ali on May 26 and Marwan on July 10, Ayob said.
They face charges of providing assistance to suspected militants trying to enter the southern Philippines via Sabah. They were also believed to be responsible for tracking the movement of funds for IS-linked groups in Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, he said.
Ayob noted that Malaysian authorities had previously crippled militant cells that used Sabah as a transit point to penetrate the southern Philippines.
The Malaysian counter terror unit was working with counterparts in Indonesia and the Philippines to tackle terror activities that affect the region, Ayob said.
"It is not easy as we have a porous border to deal with," he said.
Zachary Abuza, a professor at the National War College in Washington and an expert in Southeast Asian security issues, said Sabah has become an important transit hub for foreign militants trying to get into the southern Philippines after IS's military defeat in Syria and Iraq.
"Additionally, some of the most important terrorist cells arrested in Malaysia have been in Sabah," Abuza said in an analysis published recently in The Maritime Executive. "All of this points to the fact that Sabah is not only the crux of Malaysia security, but regional security as well."


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BENARNEWS- Former Prime Minister Najib Razak played a "pivotal role" in the alleged theft of hundreds of millions of dollars from Malaysia's 1MDB fund, the prosecution argued as the ex-leader went on trial Wednesday in the second and biggest corruption case against him stemming from the financial scandal.
In the long awaited trial that opened at the Kuala Lumpur High Court, Najib faces 25 charges of abuse of power and laundering of money connected with 2.3 billion ringgit (U.S. $681 million) that went missing from 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).
"An elaborate charade was employed. It was acted out in four phases in which several characters played a part. But it was the accused [Najib] who played the pivotal role. His objective was to enrich himself," Gopal Sri Ram, the chief prosecutor, told the court in an opening statement that ran 16 pages.
He said the prosecution would prove that Najib had conspired with fugitive Malaysian businessman Low Taek Jho – better known as Jho Low – to steal money from the state fund that Najib founded in 2009, when he served a dual role as prime minister and finance minister, as a vehicle for spurring economic development in the country. Najib had also served as chairman of 1MDB's board of directors.
"He used that position and that of Prime Minister and Minister of Finance to do certain acts and to exert influence over the board ... to carry out certain abnormal transactions with undue haste," Sri Ram said. "The ultimate aim of the accused was to obtain gratification for himself. He succeeded in achieving that aim."
Altogether Najib faces 42 charges in various criminal cases against him, including in a separate trial that began earlier this year. The 66-year-old has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges.
Najib's ruling coalition was swept out of power in a general election last year, amid widespread calls that he resign over the 1MDB affair.
"The prosecution will prove that the accused, by his words and conduct, made it clear to 1MDB's officers, its board and others that Jho Low was [Najib's] alter ego. In truth, Jho Low was the accused's mirror image," Sri Ram said, adding that prosecutors would establish facts giving rise "to an irresistible inference that Jho Low and the accused acted as one at all material times."
Low, a financier who became famous around the globe for a jet-setting lifestyle and partying with Hollywood stars, is a target of criminal investigations and lawsuits by U.S. officials in connection with 1MDB.
Jho Low's whereabouts are unknown but he has consistently denied any involvement in the 1MDB scandal, via statements issued through a public relations firm that represents him. The American Department of Justice has describe the 1MBD affair as the "worst kleptocracy scandal in recent times."
According to Sri Ram, after news of the scandal broke in July 2015, Najib and Jho Low tried to cover their tracks by producing falsified documents purporting that the stolen money was a donation from an Arab prince.
"Among these were letters and four [bank] checks each for a sum of U.S. $25 million purportedly written out by a person said to be the Arab donor. But these checks were never meant to be encashed," the prosecutor told the court.
Najib had claimed earlier that the money was donated by Saudi Arabia in appreciation for Malaysia's practice and championing of Sunni Islam, as well as for fighting the Islamic State militant group. The funds, however, were deposited into Najib's bank accounts well before IS became known worldwide when it declared its caliphate in Iraq and Syria in 2014.
 

 
After Wednesday's hearing, Najib's lead attorney challenged the prosecution to prove that his client was involved in forging papers.
"My client believes honestly that it came from the Saudi king because he met with the Saudi king, and there was that promise of 1 billion [dollars], and money did come into his account," defense lawyer Muhammad Shafee Abdullah told reporters outside the courtroom.
Shafee, who is also representing the former PM in the SRC International trial, accused Jho Low of manipulating Najib as well as misleading banks and other authorities for his own gain.

"We will raise all this. So to say that my client is the alter ego [of Jho Low], I want to see them proving it," Shafee said.
"You can see from the SRC trial, the prosecution had a great deal of a struggle to even link us with Jho Low," the chief defense counsel added.
The 1MDB trial proceedings started a day after the prosecution rested its case in Najib's first trial, where he faces seven charges related to the alleged illegal diversion of 42 million ringgit (U.S. $9.9 million) in funds from SRC International, a 1MDB subsidiary.
The 1MDB trial will continue till November and is expected to hear testimony from up to 60 witnesses.
In the SRC trial, the two sides will present oral submissions in October, after which the judge is expected to rule on Nov. 11 whether Najib will have to enter a defense.


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BENARNEWS- Malaysia and Vietnam on Wednesday expressed "serious concern over recent developments in the South China Sea" after Chinese vessels challenged their energy assets and sea boundaries in the disputed region.
The two countries issued a joint statement underscoring "the importance" of maintaining peace, stability, security and the rule of law in the vast sea in conjunction with a three-day visit to Vietnam by Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad.
Mahathir held talks with his Vietnamese counterpart Nguyen Xuan Phuc on Tuesday, after which Phuc said the two countries would work closely with other Southeast Asian nations to ensure freedom of navigation and overflight in disputed areas in the South China Sea, Malaysian media reported.
In their statement, Malaysia and Vietnam also emphasized "the importance of self-restraint, non-militarization" and "avoidance of activities that may escalate tensions."
The statement came as a Chinese survey vessel extended its activities to an area closer to Vietnam's coastline at the weekend and the Chinese coast guard tracked around an oil rig on Malaysia's continental shelf.
The Haiyang Dizhi 8 vessel first entered Vietnam's exclusive economic zone early last month for seismic survey, triggering a tense standoff between military and coast guard vessels from Vietnam and China.
Hanoi described the incursions as a "serious violation" of Vietnamese sovereignty and demanded that Beijing remove the vessel.
The United States accused China of using "bullying tactics" by carrying out "coercive interference" in oil and gas activities in waters claimed by Vietnam.
China claims nearly all of the South China Sea. The Philippines, Taiwan, Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam also have overlapping territorial claims to the sea, which is vital to international shipping and trade.
Meanwhile, a Chinese survey ship, "Shiyan 2," was spotted operating in Malaysia's EEZ near the Luconia Breakers, according to information posted on Twitter on Aug. 4 by Ryan Martinson, a professor at the U.S. Naval College in Washington. On Aug. 9, he reported that the same ship was continuing to operate in the EEZ, which lies off Sarawak state in Malaysian Borneo.
On Aug. 14, Martinson posted more information saying that another Chinese survey ship, "Haiyang 4," was heading to Malaysia's exclusive zone.
Malaysian officials have not confirmed the reports about the alleged intrusions but told BenarNews that they would look into them.
Malaysian Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah said recently that the 2002 Declaration of Conduct Parties, which set loose guidelines of behavior by claimant nations in the sea region, had "no fangs" and Beijing's militarization could potentially escalate regional tensions.
In their joint statement Wednesday, Kuala Lumpur and Hanoi underlined support for the full and effective implementation of a code of conduct in the sea region.

"The two sides agreed that disputes shall be resolved through peaceful means, including full respect for legal and diplomatic processes, without resorting to the threat or use or force," the statement said.
China has built numerous military installations with advanced ballistic-missile capabilities on reclaimed islands under its control in the South China Sea.


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BENARNEWS- He supports Osama bin Laden's "terrorizing America." He recommends capital punishment for homosexuals and wants the death penalty for those who abandon Islam as their faith.
Zakir Naik, an Islamic preacher from India, has long courted controversy. He is wanted in his home country for money laundering and spreading hate speech, and he has been accused of fueling the worst terrorist attack ever to hit neighboring Bangladesh.
Now in Malaysia, where he was given sanctuary after being declared persona non grata in Britain, Canada and several other countries, Naik is at the center of a storm after he made disparaging remarks about minority non-Muslims in the multi-racial country.
The bearded medical-doctor-turned-TV-preacher is popular among Muslims in Malaysia, where he has been given permanent residence status.
In his latest gathering, where he attracted as many as 100,000 people, according to news reports, the firebrand cleric questioned the loyalty of minority Hindus and likened ethnic Chinese to mere "guests" in Malaysia.
Police have banned Naik for making any speeches and questioned him twice, in one instance for up to 10 hours, on charges of "making an intentional insult aimed at provoking a breach of the peace," after receiving 115 complaints against him.
Several non-Muslim ministers in Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's cabinet have called for Naik's expulsion after the preacher compared minority Hindus in Malaysia to minority Muslims in India, saying that the Hindus in Malaysia enjoyed "100 times" more rights than Muslims in India.
Naik then alleged that Hindus in Malaysia were more loyal to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi than to Mahathir, whom he praised for stoutly defending Islam.
He also said that if ethnic Chinese in Malaysia wanted him ejected from the country, they should be expelled too because they, like him, were "guests" in the country.
Naik has since apologized for his remarks but said his detractors had taken his comments out of context. "It was never my intention to upset any individual or community," he said in a statement last week.
"Even though I have clarified myself, I feel I owe an apology to everyone who feels hurt because of this misunderstanding," he said as he sought to dispel allegations that he was a racist.
"That is against the basic tenets of Islam," he said. "Racism is an evil I am staunchly against."
Mahathir said that police would proceed with its investigations on Naik's case and the government would deal with the matter in accordance with the law. But the prime minister suggested that Malaysia would not send Naik back to India because his safety could be jeopardized, even though the two countries had an extradition treaty.
"The problem that we face is that we cannot send him back. Because he runs the risk of being killed," Mahathir said. "If any country wants to have him, they are welcome to do so."
Banned
Mahathir's government and that of his corruption-tainted predecessor, Najib Razak, have appeared unwilling to take action against Naik despite previous complaints about his divisive rhetoric.
The recent furor had led to a plethora of calls for his expulsion and, according to some reports, threatened to split Malaysia's ruling coalition.
Naik, 53, has faced the wrath of governments before he fled India to Malaysia in 2016, when news reports emerged that one of the suspects in the deadly Dhaka café siege in Bangladesh had posted a Facebook message quoting him.
Bangladeshi investigators said Rohan Imtiaz, 22, had posted Naik's sermons on social-media before he disappeared in January 2016, only to be seen six months later with four other terrorists during the Holey Artisan Bakery attack that killed 29 people.
Following the attack, Bangladeshi human rights activist and writer Taslima Nasreen posted on her Twitter page that Naik's speeches were "dangerous" and that he was promoting "7th century Quranic texts on sex slaves, polygamy and wife-beating in 21st century."
"Many Bangladeshi would-be-terrorists are inspired by Zakir Naik," she said. "He is not having machetes in hands. But his followers are having machetes in hands."
In 2017, the Indian government filed charges against him alleging he was involved in a criminal conspiracy by lauding terrorist organizations, and had laundered money through his NGO and a shell company.
Naik, a trained medical doctor, became a televangelist in 2006 when he founded Peace TV, a nonprofit satellite network based in Dubai.
Bangladesh banned Naik's TV channel just after the Holey Artisan siege. Then-Information Minister Hasanul Haq Inu told reporters that the TV channel's broadcasts "were not consistent with Muslim society, the Quran, Sunnah, Hadith, Bangladesh's Constitution, our culture, customs and rituals."
The 24-hour TV channel, which is broadcast in English, Urdu and Bangla, has also been banned in Sri Lanka and India.
But Naik's official channel is still available on YouTube, with 1.2 million subscribers getting access to his videos.
Naik, who wears spectacles and suits and always gives his religious discourses in English, founded the nonprofit Islamic Research Foundation (IRF) in Mumbai, India in 1991. IRF's website says it promotes "the proper presentation, understanding and appreciation of Islam, as well as removing misconceptions about Islam."
Officials from several countries accuse him of often twisting Islamic teachings to incite hate. Naik, however, has claimed that his comments have often been taken out of context.
Immensely Popular
The Mumbai native once enjoyed immense popularity in India, and was described in some newspapers as "the rock star of tele-evangelism and a proponent of modern Islam."
The Indian Express included Naik at least twice in its list of the "100 Most Powerful Indians" explaining that a million people attended the preacher's 10-day "peace conference" in November 2010 in Mumbai.
About 200,000 people, including former Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, who is now a leader of a key component party in Mahathir's ruling coalition, attended one of Naik's lectures during that event, the newspaper said.
Ahmad Martadha Mohamed, an associate professor at the Universiti Utara Malaysia in the northwestern state of Kedah, explained that religion was the galvanizing factor for Malay Muslims to back Naik, not his personality.
"He is seen more as a symbol of the religion," Ahmad said. "The same goes for other preachers. Malays will rise and back them as well because of the religious sentiment, so it is not exclusively to Zakir."
Book authors, such as anthropologist Thomas Blom Hansen, have said that Naik's missionary activities and his style of memorizing the Quran, the Muslim holy book, may have endeared him to his followers.
"That he is medical doctor and scientist who can recite by memory both the Koran and Hadiths (commentaries and interpretations of the Koran) in Arabic, Urdu and English and travels to America and Europe to debate Islam with theologians has made Naik quite a star in Central Mumbai," Hansen wrote in his book, "Wages of Violence."
But several powerful politicians have slammed Naik, including Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who said in a campaign speech in May that the preacher's words "have triggered blasts in Sri Lanka," referring to the April 21 suicide bombings at three churches and three luxury hotels in Colombo in which 259 people were killed.
"No one is above the law. Certainly not citizens, much less a permanent resident, even one as respected for his knowledge as Zakir," Malaysia's Home Minister Muhyiddin Yassin told reporters this week, underscoring that the preacher's statements had caused "discomfort."
'Unacceptable behavior'
In June 2010, Naik was denied entry into the United Kingdom and Canada, where he was to give a series of lectures.
"Numerous comments made by Dr. Naik are evidence to me of his unacceptable behavior," Theresa May, then the U.K. home secretary, told reporters.
Three years later, Malaysia bestowed him the "Maal Hijrah" award in appreciation of his contribution to the development of Islam and in 2015, Saudi King Salman bin Abdul Aziz presented Naik with the "2015 King Faisal International Prize for Service to Islam."
On July 31, 2008, in one of his most controversial remarks captured on TV, Naik said the Sept. 11 terror attacks in the United States were "done by George Bush himself."
During a televised open forum that followed his sermon, Naik was asked whether he viewed the slain al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden as a terrorist.
"If he is fighting enemies of Islam, I am for him. I don't know him personally," Naik replied. "If he is terrorizing America, the biggest terrorist, I am with him. Every Muslim should be a terrorist. The thing is that if he is terrorizing a terrorist, he is following Islam."
Abdul Rahman Othman, an Islamic scholar in Malaysia's Pahang state, told BenarNews that Naik's expulsion could lead to anger among his Muslim followers.
"We have to go back to the law and everyone has to understand the role of a preacher who preaches in an Islamic country," he said. "Muslims have the right to propagate and explain Islamic teaching."


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BENARNEWS- Iran's top envoy, Mohammad Javad Zarif, held talks with Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad on Thursday as part of his East Asian diplomatic push apparently to win Tehran relief from U.S. sanctions.
The Iranian foreign minister had a breakfast meeting with Malaysian counterpart Saifuddin Abdullah before holding talks with Mahathir, who has criticized the sanctions imposed by Washington last year to target Iran's energy, banking, metals and shipping industries.
The sanctions came after the Trump administration pulled the United States out of a landmark 2015 nuclear agreement, which gave Iran sanctions relief in exchange for measures aimed at preventing Tehran from obtaining materials that could be used to build nuclear arms.
In May, after Iran announced that it would not comply with parts of the nuclear deal, the U.S. stepped up the sanctions to cover the iron, steel, aluminum and copper industries.
An official at the Prime Minister's Office said the hour-long meeting between Mahathir and Zarif in Malaysia's administrative capital, Putrajaya, touched on the U.S. sanctions and issues affecting the Muslim world, among other subjects.
He did not elaborate but Zarif, who had visited China and Japan before stopping in Malaysia, said talks with the Malaysian officials were "good and friendly."
In Zarif's meeting with Saifuddin, they discussed broadening bilateral relations and an upcoming trip by Mahathir's to Iran. Tehran Times reported last month that Mahathir was expected to visit the Middle Eastern country in October.
The foreign ministers also spoke about the latest developments surrounding the Iran nuclear deal, and major issues of the region and the Islamic world, a source in the Foreign Ministry said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
Trading partners
Total Malaysia-Iran trade was valued at nearly U.S. $600 million in the 10 months to January 2019, according to Iranian media reports in March. The trade balance was in Iran's favor.
Iran mainly exported gas condensates, non-alloy iron/steel ingots and bitumen to Malaysia during the 10-month period while it imported mainly palm oil, machinery and natural rubber.
This week, Malaysian Defense Minister Mohamed Sabu told Reuters that discussions were underway with Iran, among other countries, on the possibility of using palm oil to pay for arms as the Southeast Asia nation seeks to replace old equipment to boost its defense capabilities.
In March, Sigal Mandelker, the U.S. under-secretary of Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, visited Malaysia and Singapore to warn against any involvement in schemes to evade sanctions against Iran.
"It's very important that these countries have important visibility into the different ways the Iranian regime uses to deceive the international community in connection with the shipment of oil," she said, referring to her talks in Singapore and Malaysia.
Mahathir has accused the United States of making ongoing provocations against Iran, which he said might prompt a real conflict in the Middle East.
"I think as far as I can see, it is America, which is making all the provocation," Mahathir told CNBC , adding, "First, they withdrew from the [nuclear] treaty, and now they're sending warships to the [Persian] Gulf, and doing things that will provoke Iran."
Mahathir made the remarks while attending a summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Bangkok
Thursday's trip was Zarif's second to Malaysia as foreign minister. Two years ago, he attended an Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) meeting here on the plight of the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar.
James Chin, a geopolitics expert from the University of Tasmania, said he believed Iran was hoping for Mahathir to "say something to support their fight against the U.S."
"I don't think the visit will lead to any breakthrough other than PR for the Iranians to show that there are countries still willing to host them," he said.
Oh Ei Sun, an expert at the Singapore Institute of International Affairs, said the visit by the Iran delegation was significant for Tehran for two reasons.
"First, Iran is heavily sanctioned by the U.S., and by receiving the Iranian foreign minister, Dr. Mahathir is playing up his old antagonistic posture vis-a-vis the U.S. again, much as he did during his first stint as prime minister, to demonstrate Malaysia's independence in foreign affairs and solidarity with developing countries as well as Islamic world," Oh told BenarNews.
"And secondly, Iran is a Shia regime; while Malaysia's Muslims are mostly Sunni, Shia [are] officially viewed as a deviant cult. So Dr Mahathir is making a clear distinction between foreign policy needs versus domestic religious politics," Oh added.
There are at least 100,000 Iranian expatriates in Malaysia, according to 2013 figure from the Middle East Institute. The Iranians are mostly Shia Muslim and despite being welcomed in Malaysia, they are not allowed to worship Shia beliefs openly. It is considered deviant because Islam in Malaysia is represented by the Sunni Shafi'i sect of theology.
Zarif: US waging 'economic terrorism'
During his visit, Zarif also spoke at a forum organized by the Institute of Strategic and International Studies (ISIS), a Malaysian think-tank, on security and other issues affecting the Muslim world.
In the half-hour session, Zarif warned that the Islamic State extremist group remained a threat even after losing its territories in Syria and Iraq.
After the forum, Zarif reiterated that the U.S. would have to observe the 2015 nuclear deal if it wanted to meet Tehran for talks.
"The United States is engaged in an economic war against the Iranian people and it won't be possible for us to engage with the United States unless they stop imposing a war and engaging in economic terrorism against the Iranian people," he said.
Earlier this week, American President Donald Trump said he would meet Iranian President Hassan Rouhani under the right circumstances to end the confrontation over the nuclear deal, which was negotiated under the Obama administration.
Rouhani has said that Iran would not talk to the U.S. until all sanctions were lifted.


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BENARNEWS- Abdul Hamid Bador, the 61-year-old son of a constable, took over recently as inspector-general of police, where he leads the 131,000 men and women who comprise the Royal Malaysia Police force.
He had retired four years ago after the government of then-Prime Minister Najib Razak  effectively demoted him after he spoke out against a corruption scandal tied to 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), a state fund founded by Najib in 2009.
Abdul Hamid was reinstated to the federal police force as deputy chief by Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, soon after the Pakatan Harapan coalition ousted Najib's government in the May 2018 general election. On May 3 of this year, he succeeded Mohamad Fuzi Harun under a two-year contract, even though Abdul Hamid had surpassed the mandatory retirement age of 60.
On Friday, Malaysia's top cop sat for an interview with BenarNews where he discussed concerns ranging from racial tensions linked to social media, counter-terrorism efforts, border security, and Malaysian Islamic State fighters and their families who had joined IS in Syria and Iraq.
He also answered questions about the Malaysia-Indonesia link to suicide bombers who attacked a church in the southern Philippines in January, an internal police investigation, the alleged enforced disappearances of a Christian clergyman and a Shia Muslim activist, and radical Indian Muslim preacher Zakir Naik who is being investigated over alleged inflammatory remarks.
Here are excerpts from the interview:
Security concerns and racial tensions
BenarNews: What is Malaysia's top security concern?
Abdul Hamid Bador: The rise in cases involving public debate and comments in social media that unnecessarily invite negative reactions from one race against another. ... As I have said, I am not going to warn anyone anymore. A special team is scrutinizing all social media and once they detect anything that fits into the commission of any offense, they will immediately lodge a police report. [Police] will try to identify the culprit and we will take the necessary action.
BN: How many reports have been lodged related to these concerns?
AHB: About 1,053. Most centered around Zakir Naik.
BN: What is the status of the Zakir Naik case?
AHB: The investigation paper was sent to the attorney general but he has given few instructions so we are still working on the case.
BN: Does this mean people cannot voice their opinions on social media?
AHB: No. I, for one, encourage and uphold the principle of freedom of speech and expression. ... So as long as a healthy debate is going on within the confines of the constitution, that is OK.
Terrorism threats
BN: Do you see a change in the terrorism threat?
AHB: Whatever incident is happening outside the country, we will try to learn from it so we can prevent it from happening in our country. Things that happened in Indonesia and the Philippines always attract our attention so we can learn from them. Also, we are preparing for returnees from Syria.
BN: Regarding those returnees, some argue we should not take them back. How do you respond?
AHB: ... Because they are Malaysians we have to bring them back to face justice here. We cannot ignore them or else we will be criticized by the United Nations. ... If the returnees are active combatants, we will take action under the current law to detain them.
BN: Indonesia and the Philippines have seen female suicide bombers. Are you concerned that some women who have been in Syria and are expected to return have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State or local terror groups?
ABH: As we receive returnees from Iraq and Syria, our counterparts in Turkey and Qatar will feed us with intelligence on how deep was their involvement with IS. If they went there as simply housewives, they will be subjected to something similar to administrative detention.
Malaysia is lucky in some sense when it comes to the terror threat compared to our neighbors. Indonesia is too big, too porous with thousands of islands. Compared to Indonesia, we have a smaller area and with due diligence and hard work, our counter terrorism unit can prevent any untoward incident from happening.
I am not saying the special branch is super-efficient, we are just lucky. At the same time, we have doubled our efforts to enhance safety and security in Malaysia.
Borders
BN: What are your border security concerns?
AHB: One thing we are focusing on is the encroachment of Vietnamese fishermen/boats into our waters along the East Coast of the South China Sea. ... So with the cooperation of the Malaysia Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA), the fisheries department and marine police, we doubled our efforts and managed to conduct many arrests and seizures involving Vietnamese boats.
... MMEA, along with marine police strengthened their presence in Sabah waters. Efforts to track down tips about kidnap-for-ransom groups along the East Coast of Sabah continue and have resulted in many successes and arrests. Those arrested will be charged and those without documents will be deported back to the Philippines.
... Before we have a permanent structure, we are focusing on mobility and the ability to block escape routes, to engage with the kidnappers while they are on the run. ...  We have dozens of check points along the coasts. At each checkpoint there could be up to 30 security personnel.
BN: How do you respond to Sabah becoming a transit point for foreign terrorists, and what steps have been taken since the Jolo church suicide bombing?
AHB: We can't do much except improve our intelligence coverage and with Indonesian intelligence help. That is why we find that the mechanics of having trilateral communications among Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines are very important.
Disappearances
BN: What is your take on alleged enforced disappearances and Suhakam (the National Human Rights Commission) releasing its own findings?
ABH: We welcome the special team's investigation and I will assist them. ... They came to see me last month and I pledged my readiness to assist.
Suhakam can say anything, but instead of making public announcement they should hand the report to the government. ... As far as I am concerned as the new IGP, I would like to have faith and believe that kidnappings/abductions were not done by police.
BN: Will there be an internal investigation?
ABH: There is already an investigation but we are postponing it for now to allow a (six-member Royal Commission of Inquiry) to convene. It does not mean that we closed the case because if there is any new evidence, we will investigate.
Political climate
BN: Is the current political climate worsening tensions?
AHB: No. I think independence month (marking the Aug. 31 anniversary) has eased the tension a bit as Malaysians share their messages of patriotism on social media, and even the mainstream media played up patriotic issues.
BN: You warned the previous government about potential corruption involving 1Malaysia Development Berhad, what is your reaction to seeing former Prime Minister Najib Razak's trials?
ABH: I am relieved that the case finally got to court. I always said I suspected there was something wrong with the 1MDB, and I received information of robbery and theft. What I said has been confirmed by the decision to bring charges.
BN: How are you dealing with allegations of corruption among the police force?
ABH: ... Our internal team from the Integrity and Standards Compliance Department has been actively conducting checks to determine if any members of the force are involved in gambling, drug abuse and corruption. Hundreds have been arrested.
Now we are asking from the government more manpower. ... I'm asking for 1,000 additional personnel to check on the 131,000-member force.
Abdul Hamid Bador's future
BN: How long do you think you will serve as IGP?
ABH: I'm looking forward to leaving as soon as possible. Honestly I don't foresee staying long.
What the government has given me, two years is more than enough ... if I can start the ball rolling. When I find the right time for me to leave even if it is before the contract ends, I will leave.
I did not ask for this position. Even when people said I would become IGP, I said it was not possible. But when Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad asked, I couldn't say no.
... At this juncture as everyone clamors for a better and clean police force, clean ministry, clean government, of course I feel that it is my duty to make it work.


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BENARNEWS- FBI agents have visited Malaysia to conduct interviews and gather statements in preparation for the potential trial of Hambali, the Guantanamo prisoner accused of masterminding the 2002 Bali bombings in Indonesia that killed more than 200 people, Malaysia's police chief said Friday.
Pentagon prosecutors filed new and expanded charges against Hambali on April 5, accusing the Indonesian national of conspiring with al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and 47 others to commit terrorist attacks across Southeast Asia and elsewhere.
"Yes, they did. They only came here to gather statements to strengthen their case on Hambali in the U.S. courts," Inspector-General of Police Abdul Hamid Bador told BenarNews in an interview, referring to the FBI agents. "Yes, they came a few times."
Abdul Hamid said Malaysian authorities helped the American investigators locate people who could be interviewed in the case so that their testimony could be included in the hearing.
"[We provided] the people for them to interview to get the deposition for their case," he said.
"They took the statements and if the defense wants to question that, it is up to [the] court," the police chief added.
Ron Flesvig, spokesman for the Office of Military Commissions-Convening Authority, told BenarNews on Friday that charges against Hambali "had been referred," paving the way for pre-trial proceedings.
The 55-year-old Hambali, whose real name is Encep Nurjaman (alias Riduan Isamuddin), was arrested in Thailand in August 2003 with Malaysians Bashir Lap (alias Lilie) and Mohd Farik Bin Amin (alias Zubair). Hambali was the former military leader of Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), an Indonesian terror group linked to al-Qaeda.
Their capture took place 10 months after the bombings that killed 202 people, including 88 Australians, on the Indonesian island of Bali, on Oct. 12, 2002.
Hambali's attorney, Maj. James Valentine, told BenarNews early this month that he and three members of his legal team had interviewed a former terrorist in Malaysia in July 2019 in relation to his case. He declined to give details.
Asked by BenarNews if Malaysia was still working with the United States to seek the return of Hambali's lieutenants, Lilie and Zubair, the Malaysian police chief said, "Of course we want them to come back."
"It is the duty of the government to bring them back," Abdul Hamid said. "That is the responsibility of any nation. Does not matter what they did."
Malaysia had said previously that it was up to the United States if it wanted the duo to stand trial on U.S. soil, and if convicted, made to serve their sentences in Malaysia.
"Although one of them seems to have repented, the other is still a bit tough, so it all depends on the U.S.," Abdul Hamid's predecessor, Fuzi Harun, had said earlier this year.

[https://www]

A Balinese couple prays at a Bali bomb memorial in Kuta to remember their daughter who was killed in the 2002 terrorist attacks on the Indonesian island, Oct. 12, 2010. [AP]

Prosecutors say Hambali funded and masterminded the Bali attack in October 2002. He is also accused in a bombing that killed 12 people and injured 150 others at the Marriott Hotel in the Indonesian capital on Aug. 5, 2003.
After the trio of suspects was arrested, they were sent to a secret CIA prison network before being moved to the U.S. military prison located within the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in September 2006.
News reports had said that FBI officers had also visited Indonesia over Hambali's case last year but Indonesian officials denied such a visit took place.
Hambali's attorney, Valentine, said that he and two members of his team tried to enter Indonesia over Hambali's case but were blocked from entry at the airport by immigration authorities on July 11.
"We were detained and expelled," he said, explaining that he and the two other lawyers were held overnight in a detention cell at the Jakarta international airport before being sent back to Tokyo, their point of embarkation.
But Indonesian authorities said legal teams involved in the Hambali case had not visited the country. Foreign Ministry spokesman Teuku Faizasyah said he had "never heard about a visit by Hambali's lawyers or investigators to Indonesia."
"If Hambali's lawyers or investigators want to visit, there's an avenue for that and they should make clear their intentions," he said. "The concerned parties can write to our embassy [in the United States]."
"No investigators from the United States have come to Indonesia as far as the Hambali case is concerned," Dedy Prasetyo, Indonesia's national police spokesman, told BenarNews in early August.


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BENARNEWS- A key prosecution witness told a Kuala Lumpur court Wednesday that former Prime Minister Najib Razak had instructed him to go to China and offer infrastructure projects in return for money to bail out 1MDB, Malaysia's troubled sovereign wealth fund.
Amhari Efendi Nazaruddin, 43, testified that Najib had ordered him to meet with the Chinese government-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council (SASAC) in June 2016 to discuss the infrastructure projects.
"Because this came from Najib, I did not dare to go against the order," Amhari testified at the Kuala Lumpur High Court.
Najib is standing trial on 25 charges of abuse of power and money laundering connected with 2.3 billion ringgit (U.S. $681 million) that went missing from 1Malaysia Development Berhad, or 1MDB, a fund he established in 2009 when he was prime minister and finance minister.
"Najib offered state enterprises' participation in infrastructure projects while simultaneously completely resolving 1MDB and SRC debts," Amhari said, quoting from talking points given to him to present to the Chinese commission.
"That sentence made it clear that Najib intended to send a message that the relations also entailed assisting 1MDB and SRC through bailing out 1MDB debts," Amhari testified, reading from a 77-page statement during his second day on the stand.
"Even though I respected and followed Najib's instruction, it was the most difficult time in my career. I worried I would be implicated in Najib and Jho Low's plan if it was to cover up the missing 1MDB funds," he said. He was referring to fugitive Malaysian financier Low Taek Jho, another major figure in the 1MDB corruption scandal who is better known as Jho Low.
The testimony was the first from a government witness alleging that Najib's government held talks with Chinese officials to resolve the 1MDB debt issue in exchange for awarding contracts for infrastructure projects in Malaysia.
Ahmari, the eighth prosecution witness, is expected to return to court on Thursday to face questioning from Najib's defense team.
Najib's second trial in connection with the 1MDB scandal began on Aug. 28. A day earlier, the prosecution rested in a trial where the former prime minister faces seven charges related to the alleged illegal diversion of 42 million ringgit (U.S. $9.9 million) in funds from SRC International, a 1MDB subsidiary.
The alleged June 2016 meeting included discussions about six potential infrastructure projects including three – the East Coast Rail Link (ECRL) project, the Trans-Sabah Gas Pipeline (TSGP) project, and the Multi-Product Pipeline (MPP) project – that were approved by Najib's government for construction, according to Amhari's testimony.
The ECRL, which is part of Beijing's One Belt One Road initiative, was among several Chinese-financed projects in Malaysia that were shelved months after Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad took power after leading the opposition to a shock win in the May 2018 general election.
In April, the Chinese engineering firm that was contracted for the project agreed to cut its bill to 44 billion ringgit (U.S. $11 billion) from the original price tag of 65.5 billion ringgit (U.S. $16 billion), prompting Mahathir's government to allow the rail project to proceed. The other two projects were suspended in 2018 over cost concerns.
Jho Low's alleged role
Amhari who was appointed in 2008 as Najib's special officer in charge of secret projects, testified that Jho Low was present at the SASAC meeting and took a lead role in briefing the Chinese delegation.
"Jho Low then took over and continued the meeting in Mandarin to explain the matter in further detail," Amhari testified.
The witness said he learned that Jho Low would be involved in the meeting when the financier handed him talking points and an action plan at the venue minutes before the meeting began.
Echoing a statement by the lead prosecutor, Amhari described Najib and Jho Low as each other's "alter ego" and "mirror image."
In his written testimony, Amhari said Jho Low had been communicating with Najib even before his own appointment in 2008, according to a copy viewed by BenarNews.
"I say this because Rosmah [Najib's wife] called Jho Low numerous times although the gist of the conversations is not known. Many times Azlin Alias and I examined instructions from Jho Low with Najib," Amhari said.
Ahmari said he and Azlin had received instructions from Jho Low during a series of clandestine meetings at a hotel in Kuala Lumpur. Azlin, who served as Najib's chief private secretary, died in a helicopter crash in April 2015.
"Jho Low was easy to approach and always had a smile. He would say he had met Najib prior to the meetings. We always did what we were told as we did not want to go against Najib, and were concerned about our positions," Amhari testified.
"Najib was aware and agreed with the instructions," Amhari said,
He said Azlin had explained why the former prime minister was not present. "Jho Low is Najib's trusted person, which is why Najib did not need to attend the meetings."
Najib faces a total of 42 charges in criminal cases against him, including the SRC International trial that began earlier this year.
The 66-year-old has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges.
Jho Low, who became known around the globe for a jet-setting lifestyle and partying with Hollywood stars, is a target of international criminal investigations and lawsuits in connection with 1MDB.
The fugitive has been charged in Malaysia with three counts of receiving funds and five counts of transferring funds totaling 1 billion ringgit ($261 million) under the Anti-Money Laundering and Anti-Terrorism Financing Act, officials said.


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BENARNEWS- Malaysian police said security forces gunned down two suspected members of the southern Philippine-based militant group Abu Sayyaf during a shootout at sea off Sabah state, police said Wednesday, days after Indonesia had warned about movements by armed groups in area waters.
Sabah state Police Commissioner Omar Mammah said members of a law-enforcement team, including the Eastern Sabah Security Command (ESSCOM), were on patrol Tuesday night when they spotted two boats about 10 nautical miles (18.5 km) off Lahad Datu district.
"The team tried to intercept the two boats when the perpetrators fired shots at them," Omar told BenarNews. He said the officers did not get hit, but returned fire.
Gunmen on one of the boats managed to flee as they entered Philippine territorial waters, he said, adding that the suspects left behind one of the boats, where the law-enforcement team found the body of a man with gunshot wounds.
"As soon as the shooting stopped, we inspected a boat where we found one dead body in it, while another body was found floating nearby," Omar said. "We believe that the suspects were from the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG)."
Abu Sayyaf is a ragtag band of militants based in and around Jolo and Basilan islands in the southwestern part of the Philippines. Authorities could not determine the nationalities of the slain men as they did not carry identification documents, Omar said.
Other police officials later told reporters that the duo were between 30 and 40 years old. Security forces seized a vintage Garand rifle with a magazine and two live bullets, authorities said.
Sabah has been under a dusk-to-dawn sea curfew during the past few months as authorities took steps to curtail movements of armed groups involved in kidnap-for-ransom activities.
The alleged shootout took place just days after the state-run news agency Bernama reported that the Consulate General of the Republic of Indonesia had issued a "letter of notification" to local authorities, warning about the movement of armed groups between the southern Philippines and the east coast of Sabah, one of two Malaysian states on Borneo Island.
Bernama quoted Krishna Djelani, the Indonesian consul-general based in Kota Kinabalu, as saying that the warning was important to ensure that Indonesians, especially those working as fishermen and crew members of ships, took safety precautions.
During the past 19 years, more than 20 kidnapping incidents involving Indonesian victims had taken place, resulting in the deaths of almost 40 people, Krishna told Bernama. She did not elaborate.
"We were initially informed that there was a movement of armed groups from southern Philippines that had to do with kidnapping for ransom," she said, adding that the notification was aimed at warning about 300,000 Indonesians living in Sabah.
"Any information that we receive, we have to warn the Indonesians there as a precaution lest they become victims (of abduction)," she said.
The killing of the suspects occurred days after Malaysia's national police chief, Abdul Hamid Bador, told BenarNews in a wide-ranging interview that the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA), along with maritime police, had "strengthened their presence in Sabah waters" in an effort to track down kidnap-for-ransom gangs operating along the state's eastern coast.
"[W]e are focusing on mobility and the ability to block escape routes, to engage with the kidnappers while they are on the run," Abdul Hamid said. "We have dozens of [coastal] check points. ... At each checkpoint there could be up to 30 security personnel."


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BENARNEWS- Malaysian religious authorities have arrested eight people, including four foreigners, during a raid at a private gathering of Shia followers in southern Johor state, police said Tuesday, in the latest clampdown on adherents of the second-largest branch of Islam.
Eight men, including two Singaporeans, an Indonesian and a Yemeni, were arrested on charges of participating in a gathering that contravened the state's religious regulations, police said.
If found guilty, the suspects could face heavy fines and up to a year in prison.
The Malaysian Constitution states that citizens may worship according to their beliefs, but the government of the Sunni Muslim-majority country bans the practice of Shia Islam, declaring its teachings "deviant."
On Monday, a team composed of 32 officers raided a house near Johor Bahru, capital of Johor, a police official told BenarNews on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.
"The team found 54 people, consisting of 31 men and 23 women in the premises," the official said. Officers also seized a variety of items, including a prayer book, he said.
"The items were seized as evidence that those arrested were alleged adherents of the Shia sect and promoting the belief," the official said.
In Malaysia, raids and arrests against Shia Muslims often take place during the 10th day of Muharram, the first month in the Islamic lunar calendar, which falls on Sept. 10 this year.
During that event, Shia Muslims celebrate the anniversary of the death of Hussain Ali, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, during the Battle of Karbala more than 3,000 years ago in what is now known as Iraq. Followers of the Sunni branch of Islam do not recognize Ali as being the prophet's rightful successor.
The vast majority of the world's 1.8 billion Muslims are Sunni, according to the Pew Research Center. As of the late 2000, Shia Muslims constituted 10 to 15 percent of Muslims, reports said.
While Sunnis rely heavily on the practice of the Prophet and his teachings, the Shia see their ayatollahs as reflections of God on Earth. This has led Sunnis to accuse the Shia of heresy; while the Shia point out that Sunni dogmatism has given rise to extremist sects.
Also on Monday, religious authorities raided a house and arrested an undetermined number of Pakistanis in Selangor state as they were practicing their Shia faith, police said.
The raid followed the arrest of 22 people three days earlier at the main Shia center in Selangor's Gombak district.
The recent clampdown on private Shia activities marked a significant change in the government's stance on foreigners practicing their banned Islamic faith in private.
Human rights abuse
Malaysia's Shia chairman, Kamil Zuhairi Abdul Aziz, who had been detained numerous times in the past, described the series of raids as harassment.
"Every year, during Ashura celebration, I get detained," Kamil told BenarNews. "I've been detained more than 10 times since 2010."
There are an estimated 50,000 to 200,000 Shia followers in Malaysia, he said, underscoring the difficulty of determining an accurate number because followers fear harassment and potential arrests.
Meanwhile, the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam) on Tuesday expressed its concern over the recent spate of arrests.
"Suhakam is extremely concerned by the recent raid on Shia Muslims in Gombak, which includes the arrest of children," the commission said in a statement.
"Unless Malaysian authorities, NGOs and civil society respect and tolerate the religious practices of all people, we cannot truly profess to be a diverse and multi-cultural nation," it said. "The right to freely practice any religion should be enjoyed by all, without fear of reprisal."


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BENARNEWS- Kuala Lumpur and Beijing will establish a bilateral consultative mechanism to resolve differences on the South China Sea, the two nations' top diplomats said Thursday.
The announcement came less than a month after the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard launched joint drills with the Malaysian navy amid regional concerns over Beijing's growing presence in the disputed sea region.
"We are agreeable to the formation of the Bilateral Consultative Mechanism," Malaysian Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah told a joint news conference after he met with Chinese State Councilor Wang Yi in Beijing.
"I think this is one of the important outcomes of the meeting today," he said.
Saifuddin, who was on an official visit to China until Friday, said officials from both sides "will be discussing the details."
He noted that he would co-chair the joint dialogue panel with Wang, who was also quoted by Malaysia's state news agency Bernama as saying that tensions in the sea region had subsided.
"We will use the dialogue platform to differentiate and promote maritime cooperation and regional stability in the South China Sea," Wang told reporters, referring to the consultative mechanism.
China claims nearly all of the South China Sea. Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, Brunei and Vietnam also have overlapping territorial claims to the sea region, where trillions of dollars in global trade passes through annually.
Beijing's recent naval deployments in the strategic waterway, coupled with intelligence reports that it has built numerous military installations with advanced ballistic-missile capabilities on reclaimed islands under its control, have raised "serious concerns" for its smaller neighbors, Malaysian and Vietnamese officials said in a joint statement from Hanoi last month.
China and the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have been negotiating a "code of conduct," a pact aimed at averting aggressive acts by claimant states in the sea's disputed territories.

"On the COC, we are on the same page," Saifuddin told reporters, referring to the code of conduct. "I am sure that this is something that we can realize together.
In August, Malaysian Defense Minister Mohamad Sabu told Reuters that his country had regularly tracked Chinese naval and coast guard vessels entering Malaysia's territorial waters.
Washington also has expressed concern over reports that Beijing was hampering oil and gas activities of other claimant nations in the contested waterway.
In August, the U.S. 7th Fleet said in a news release that its naval drills with Malaysia also involved the first at-sea joint training between the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency and the U.S. Coast Guard.


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BENARNEWS- A Malaysian court on Thursday charged six men, including a deputy director of the National Registration Department, accusing them of being part of a syndicate that falsified identity cards and sold counterfeit documents to Chinese nationals.
The suspects were among 21 people taken into custody in August after police arrested a Chinese woman in Penang four months ago, according to a news release from Federal Police Headquarters.
Two sessions courts in Penang state separately ordered the detention of Mohd Faizul Arifin, a deputy director of the National Registration Department (NRD), businessman Lai Chin Wah; Mohd Faizal Tan Abdullah; Tan's son-in-law Chien Guan Chai; Loh Chan Cheong; and Yap Cheng Wah, court documents show.
The six, who were arrested last month, are to appear in court again on Sept. 18, officials said. They are being held under the Security Offenses (Special Measures) Act (SOSMA), which allows suspects to be detained up to 28 days without charges, court officials said.
Authorities were conducting an internal investigation, the NRD said in a statement.
"NRD will not protect any officers or staff that were found to be involved in the activities that may affect the security and the country's sovereignty," it said.
The six were charged under the Anti-Trafficking in Persons and Anti-Smuggling of Migrants Act of 2007. If convicted, they could each face prison sentences of up to 15 years and fines of not less than 50,000 ringgit (U.S. $12,000), or both, according to state news agency Bernama.
The Chinese woman arrested in connection with the case was taken into custody in May.
"The woman possessed Malaysia's identification card but could not speak Malay and failed the tests carried out at the Penang Immigration Department," the release from police headquarters said.
The woman pleaded guilty to all charges, police said without giving more details.
An investigation determined that forged identification cards and birth certificates had been issued to non-Malaysians, including Chinese nationals, between January and May this year at the office of the state National Registration Office in Penang and in Georgetown, the state's capital, it said.
The six suspects who appeared in court on Thursday were among 20 people between the ages of 32 and 70 who were arrested during a series of raids on Aug. 19, police said.
Officers seized 38 cellphones, laptops, dozens of passports and identification cards, forged documents, six vehicles and more than 38,000 ringgit ($9,202) during the raid, authorities said.


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BENARNEWS- Malaysia is developing a new immigration system to incorporate the screening of passenger data in preventing terrorists from entering or leaving the country, Home Minister Muhyiddin Yassin said.
Muhyiddin, who arrived in the United States on Sunday for a weeklong official visit, told a forum in Washington on Monday that Malaysia would implement the Advance Passenger Information System, an electronic data interchange used by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
As part of that mechanism, Kuala Lumpur will also adopt the database of computer reservations known as Passenger Name Record, a system used by the airline and travel industries, Muhyiddin said.
"Both applications are being integrated into the new immigration system, which is now being developed by Malaysia's Immigration Department," the state-run news agency Bernama quoted Muhyiddin as saying.
Muhyiddin did not explain when Malaysia would start implementing the system.
In March last year, an American official told a counter-terrorism conference in Washington that the Islamic State (IS) extremist group had started using a decentralized network of militants to spread bloodshed across the globe.
At the two-day conference, attended by experts from 90 countries and organizations, measures to defeat IS were adopted, including biometric screening and using information that people send out to book airline tickets, according to Ambassador Nathan Sales, the U.S. State Department's coordinator for counter-terrorism.
"I think what we're seeing is ISIS becoming increasingly decentralized," Sales told reporters, using another acronym for IS. "We're seeing a decentralized network fan out across the globe to continue the bloody work."
The United States is developing responses with its partner nations in Southeast Asia, he said, including information-sharing and exchanging data about known and suspected terrorists.
Passenger name records, or PNR – which consist of standard personal information given to an airline at the time of booking and through emails – have become powerful anti-terrorism tools for the United States, Sales said.
The system would help security analysts identify travel patterns of suspected terrorists and reveal connections with unknown associates, he said.
Member states of the United Nations were required to use PNR after the U.N. Security Council adopted Resolution 2396 in December 2018, urging nations to develop watch lists or databases of known and suspected terrorists, Sales said.
The resolution encouraged member states to share such information through bilateral mechanisms to law enforcement and border security.
The Security Council adopted the resolution three months before a U.S.-backed alliance of Syrian fighters defeated IS in its last pocket of territory in Syria, raising fears among governments that their battle-hardened citizens who fought for the militant group could pose a security threat by attempting to return home.
According to the United Nations, more than 40,000 foreign fighters from 110 countries might have travelled to join terror groups in Syria and Iraq. That figure includes 800 from Indonesia and 154 from Malaysia, according to security analysts.
More than 11,000 foreign women and children related to IS suspects are being held in appalling conditions in a locked desert camp in northeast Syria, according to a July 2019 Human Rights Watch report. It said at least 7,000 of the children were younger than 12.
The United States and other countries have largely refused to reclaim their nationals.


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BENARNEWS- Malaysia called Wednesday for non-militarization of the South China Sea, as Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad unveiled his Pakatan Harapan government's first comprehensive foreign policy document since it took power last year.
The 80-page document, described by Mahathir as a "guiding framework," said the nation would also adopt a non-aligned stance in its relations with major powers.

The document did not specifically mention China or the United States, but it formally laid out the Southeast Asian nation's foreign policy on the South China Sea under the new government.
Last year, months after his stunning electoral victory, Mahathir told U.S. Vice President Mike Pence that his country did not wish to see warships in the disputed sea region.
"In its relations with major powers, Malaysia will practice the non-aligned policy and approach," the document said, underscoring that Mahathir had proposed "non-militarization of the South China Sea and for the regional waters to be turned to a region of peace, friendship and trade."
Mahathir, in a speech during the ceremony launching the foreign policy, said "multilateralism was under threat" and that "powerful countries [were] unilaterally imposing their will on others."
"Malaysia is extremely concerned over this development," he said, without elaborating.
China and the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) – to which Malaysia belongs – have been negotiating a "code of conduct," a pact aimed at averting aggressive acts by claimant states in the sea's disputed territories.
In recent months, U.S. warships have sailed in the South China Sea as part of "freedom of navigation operations." Those moves have led to Beijing accusing the United States of trespassing in its territorial waters.
Meanwhile, security analysts say, Beijing has installed anti-ship cruise missile and surface-to-air missile systems on three islands in the Spratlys, a disputed group of atolls and isles in the waterway. Beijing claims nearly all of the mineral-rich sea, which is also contested by Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei, Vietnam and Taiwan.
Mahathir's comments on Wednesday came days after the U.S. Navy destroyer Wayne E. Meyer sailed near islands claimed by China in the busy waterway.
In its foreign policy framework, Malaysia said security threats from overlapping claims in the sea region "have been well contained and effectively managed diplomatically," but it underscored that "there are some flashpoints which might beget crisis or war if not properly handled."
Recognizing terrorism as a complex issue
In confronting militancy as part of its foreign policy, Malaysia will "continue to be a strong and active participant in global efforts to fight terrorism and violent extremism, in all its forms and manifestations," Mahathir's government said in the framework document.
"Resolving the problem of terrorism requires a strong and genuine political will," it said.
The battle would require "a holistic plan of action, clear and systematic line of authority, the effective involvement of non-state actors, as well as transparent sharing of information" between nations involved in the fight, the document stated.
In its anti-terror campaign, Malaysia, a Muslim-majority nation of 32 million people, will promote the role of the Southeast Asia Regional Center for Counter-Terrorism as a reference point on militancy issues, the foreign policy framework said. The Kuala Lumpur-based agency under the foreign affairs ministry provides training for security officials in the region.
At least 154 fighters from Malaysia joined more than 40,000 foreign fighters from 110 countries in fighting for militant groups, including Islamic State (IS), in Syria and Iraq, according to security analysts.


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BENARNEWS- Malaysian police seized more than 12 tons of cocaine mixed in with a shipment of charcoal during a raid in Penang state, Inspector-General of Police Abdul Hamid Bador told reporters Friday, calling it the country's largest drug bust.
Hamid said a team of officers found the cocaine, valued at 2.4 billion ringgit (U.S. $574.8 million) and charcoal stored in three containers as part of a consignment brought into Malaysia through Penang's Butterworth Port on Sept. 10.
The cocaine's total value was based on street prices of about 200,000 ringgit ($47,897) per kilogram, and it was smuggled in with about 50 tons of charcoal in an effort to mask the drug's scent, the police chief said.
"We recently identified an international drug syndicate involved in smuggling cocaine using Malaysia as its transit point," Hamid said. "They tried to deceive authorities by mixing the drugs with charcoal which made it hard to be traced using the conventional methods and technology."
He said police arrested a 29-year-old local man, but did not release other details of the investigation. The suspect was remanded for 14 days until Sept. 23 under the Dangerous Drugs Act and could face a death sentence if convicted.
The charcoal masked the scent from drug-sniffing dogs, according to officials who said they used a special machine to detect the cocaine. They did not release the name of the machine or details about how it works.
Hamid said this was the second major drug bust in Malaysia in the last month. Police in Selangor state seized 3.2 tons of cocaine valued at 674 million ringgit ($161.4 million) on Aug. 18. He said authorities were investigating to determine if the two cases were linked.
Prior to the two major busts, Hamid said Malaysian police had seized drugs valued at 285.92 million ringgit ($68.48 million) in 2019.
Geshina A. Mat Saat, a Malaysian University of Science criminologist, said the seizures showed that efforts by Malaysian authorities had borne fruit.
"Due to increased surveillance and crime prevention strategies in place, more illegal products are being discovered or traced to common trade routes," she told BenarNews.
"So it is likely that increases in discoveries of illegal products are due to a rise in surveillance and crime prevention strategies rather than an actual increased demand for products in the region. Nonetheless, some illegal products still slip through customs," she said.


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BENARNEWS- Lawyers for a North Korean businessman who is detained in Malaysia and facing extradition to the United States said Friday that their client was a victim of U.S.-North Korea "politics."
While 54-year-old Mun Chol Myong is being sought by the United States for breach of international sanctions against North Korea, several individuals hauled to court in Singapore on similar accusations were not subject to extradition requests and have been allowed bail, according to attorney Jagjit Singh.
Jagjit claimed that Mun, who was arrested in May after Washington applied for his extradition, was a victim of "politics between the United States and North Korea," which has been slapped with wide-ranging U.N. sanctions over its illicit nuclear weapons drive and missile launches.
"The North Korean has been incarcerated till now for 130 days," Jagjit told reporters after a brief pre-trial hearing at the Kuala Lumpur High Court. Mun's request for bail has been rejected.
The United States has told Malaysia it wants Mun on various charges, including money laundering and conspiracy to launder money. Malaysia's government has approved the extradition but Mun has challenged Washington's request.
A source in Malaysian intelligence told BenarNews recently that the United States believed that Mun had violated U.N. Security Council's sanctions, which were aimed at depriving North Korea of funds that could be funneled into Pyongyang's nuclear programs.
Mun, who has lived in Malaysia for about a decade, had worked for a Singapore company that was involved in trading between the Southeast Asian city state and North Korea between 2014 and 2017, Jagjit said.
Several people have been charged recently in Singapore for trading in goods with North Korea that are banned under U.N. sanctions, but have not been sought for extradition to the United States and have been released on bail pending trial, Jagjit said.
Last month, Singapore filed charges against three people linked to SinSMS Pte. Ltd, a firm in the island state affiliated with China-based Dalian Sun Moon Star International Logistics Trading Co., for breaking U.N. sanctions by facilitating shipments of alcohol worth 600,000 Singapore dollars (US$ 432,384) to North Korea.
This came following a U.S. Treasury Department announcement in Aug. 2018 to block and designate companies, ports, and vessels that facilitate illicit shipments and provide revenue streams to the North Korean regime, especially entities based in China, Singapore, and Russia.
According to Jagjit, the case in Singapore was similar to the one faced by his client, who had worked for Singaporean firm Sinsar Trading Pte. Ltd.
"He was in Singapore as a business manager and he was assisting them with the supply of the goods from Singapore to North Korea in his role as a marketing sales manager, that's it," he said.
"And even if you want to charge him, you charge him on a similar basis of what they did in Singapore –which is breach of any U.N. regulations – and not to extradite him for money laundering," said the lawyer.
BenarNews was informed by sources familiar with the case that the FBI which has been investigating Mun's activities since 2013 did find email correspondence between the accused and individuals from SinSMS Pte. Ltd, including those facing trial in Singapore, although the nature of the correspondence was not revealed.
Mun's lawyers are filing a motion to the high court on Oct. 4 to review an earlier decision denying bail to him, stressing that their client had lost substantial weight and become sick from being incarcerated.
Mun looked frail at Friday's pretrial hearing, dressed in an oversized green shirt and prison sandals.
His wife, who is suffering from cancer, and their teenage daughter was also present, accompanied by a North Korean embassy officer.
Mun is facing four U.S. charges of money laundering and two charges of conspiracy to launder money.


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BENARNEWS- Malaysian authorities are investigating reports that three fishermen were abducted Monday from their boat off Sabah's east coast near the border with the Philippines, officials said.
Sabah Chief Minister Shafie Apdal did not identify the victims but said they are believed to be Indonesians. They were kidnapped around noon by men on two pump boats – outrigger canoes powered by small engines – while fishing near the town of Lahad Datu, he said.
"I was made to understand that they were taken to Tawi-Tawi (Philippines)," he told reporters. "It occurred at roughly the same spot of previous kidnappings," he said, adding there has been no ransom demand.
Shafie said the spot of the abduction is remote, so it is difficult for patrols to be there at all times. He also suggested that a formal post be established to deter kidnappings in the region.
Hazani Ghazali, chief of the Eastern Sabah Security Command, said a witness reported the abduction after seeing two pump boats towing the fishing boat around 3 p.m., about three hours after the kidnapping took place.
"By the time the marine police arrived, the two pump boats had vanished and the fishing boat was empty," he told BenarNews.
Initial investigation showed the boat belongs to a Sabah resident and the three victims were Indonesians who worked for him, according to Hazani.
While Shafie and Hazani did not identify the perpetrators, Philippine militant group Abu Sayyaf has been blamed for a spate of kidnappings in the region over recent years where Malaysian and Indonesian sailors and fishermen have been taken hostage.
Earlier this month, Malaysian police said security forces gunned down two suspected Abu Sayyaf members during a shootout at sea off the Sabah state.
Founded in the early 1990s, Abu Sayyaf is notorious for kidnappings, bombings and beheadings carried out in the southern Philippines during the past two decades. The group, based in and around Jolo and Basilan islands in the southwestern part of the Philippines, has been blacklisted by the United States as a foreign terrorist organization.
Sabah has been under a dusk-to-dawn sea curfew during the past few months as authorities took steps to curtail movements of armed groups involved in kidnap-for-ransom activities.


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BENARNEWS- Police in Malaysia said Thursday they had arrested 16 suspected militants, mostly Indonesian nationals, for allegedly planning terrorist attacks in the country and in neighboring Indonesia.
Twelve of the suspects are believed to be members of a newly established Islamic State (IS) cell in Malaysia, said Ayob Khan Mydin Pitchay, the national police's counter-terrorism chief.
"The group planned to launch attacks in Malaysia and Indonesia," Ayob told reporters in Kuala Lumpur.
Counter-terrorism officers arrested three Malaysians, a dozen Indonesians and an Indian national during a 12-day operation in six states that ended on Wednesday, he said.
The suspects – between 22 and 36 years old – had been actively promoting IS and recruiting new members via social media, Ayob said, adding that all the Indonesians who were arrested worked as laborers and plantation workers.
"Some of them hold proper travel documents, there were also those who entered Malaysia using fake passports and without valid travel documents," Ayob told BenarNews after the news conference.
The suspects were trying to recruit enough followers to carry out an attack, he said.
"They had yet to discuss the exact location, but were planning to conduct lone-wolf and group attacks using firearms," he said.
In Sabah, a state in Malaysian Borneo, two Malaysians were arrested on suspicion of spreading IS propaganda and managing the movements of eventual suicide bombers, Ayob said.
The duo also arranged for funds to be channeled to the Maute band, a pro-IS group in the nearby southern Philippines.
"Both of them had helped arrange the path for a couple ... who carried out suicide bombing attacks at a church in Jolo," Ayob told reporters. A married Indonesian couple carried out those twin bombings in the southern Philippines on Jan. 27, killing 23 people and wounding about 100 others, according to Indonesian and Filipino officials.
In Jakarta, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it could only confirm that three Indonesians had been arrested in Malaysia.
"We only received information about three people [being arrested] from Kuala Lumpur. The rest may not have been communicated," ministry spokesman Teuku Faizasyah told BenarNews.
He said Jakarta was awaiting further information from the Malaysian government.
"Usually there is a judicial process there and then we'll see what the decisions are," he said.
Brig. Gen. Dedi Prasetyo, the spokesman for Indonesia's national police, said he had not received detailed information about the arrests in the neighboring country.
Malaysia becomes transit point
For years, Malaysia has been a transit point for Indonesian militants seeking to travel to the Muslim areas of the southern Philippines, according to Taufik Andre, a terrorism analyst at the Prasasti Perdamaian Foundation, a Jakarta-based NGO dedicated to rehabilitating former militants.
"They are likely to be new recruits who have been radicalized through social media, because ISIS is currently more active in recruiting and indoctrinating people through social media," he told BenarNews, using another acronym for IS.
Indonesian militants are more likely to carry out attacks in the Philippines than in Malaysia, according to Al Chaidar, a lecturer on terrorism at Malikussaleh University in Indonesia's Aceh province.
"In the Philippines they can build networks to get recognition from ISIS leaders in Syria," Al Chaidar told BenarNews. "I think Malaysia is just their place to transit or hide."
Another arrest in Indonesia
Elsewhere, Indonesian counter-terrorism police arrested two suspected militants during a raid on a house in Cimahi, West Java province on Thursday, Dedi said.
Authorities said the suspects were believed to be members of Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD), a local IS affiliate, who were arrested on suspicion that they were assembling bombs to attack police targets, the Indonesian police spokesman said.
Police seized four plastic bags with bomb-making materials from the two.
The duo is believed to be connected to nine JAD suspects who were arrested in West Java and Jakarta on Monday on suspicion of planning attacks on police targets, West Java police spokesman Trunoyudo Wisnu Andiko told BenarNews.
On Monday, police confiscated 500 grams of explosives at the home of one of the nine suspects in Jakarta.
North Jakarta Police Chief Budhi Herdi Susianto said officers found what they described as a "goodbye letter" written by the suspect, who allegedly planned a suicide attack using explosives at a police station.
In January 2016, authorities blamed JAD for a gun and bomb attack that killed eight people, including the four attackers, in Jakarta's central business district. It was the first terrorist attack claimed by IS in Southeast Asia.
JAD was also blamed for coordinated attacks in the Indonesian city of Surabaya in May 2018, when two families carried out suicide bombings on three churches and a police station. Twenty-four people were killed, including the attackers who used their children as young as 9 in the bombings.
An Indonesian court outlawed JAD in a July 2018 verdict that was seen as making it easier for law enforcement officials to arrest suspected members.


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BENARNEWS- Malaysia's police chief is contacting his counterpart in China to pin down the whereabouts of fugitive financier Low Taek Jho, who some say is hiding in the country, according to Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad.
"I am confident that the IGP [Inspector-General of Police] will contact his counterpart in China to obtain acknowledgment, if he can, and evidence that he [Low Taek Jho, better known as Jho Low] is in China," Mahathir told BenarNews in an interview in New York on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly.
Mahathir spoke to BenarNews late Thursday, a day after Malaysian police chief Abdul Hamid Bador said they had identified Jho Low's location and hope to bring him back by the end of the year to help in investigations into a multi-billion dollar scandal at state fund 1MDB.
Abdul Hamid did not name China. He had previously said that Malaysian police were working with an unnamed Asian country to secure Jho Low's arrest and extradition.
"I will try my best to expedite (the process) ... hopefully we can get him back by the end of the year," Abdul Hamid said at a Malaysian forum broadcast live on television.
Jho Low is a key figure in the corruption scandal surrounding 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB). Malaysian and U.S. investigators say at least U.S. $4.5 billion was misappropriated from 1MDB by Low and other high-level officials of the fund and their associates.
1MDB was founded by former Prime Minister Najib Razak, who was ousted in elections last year when the scandal was a central theme of the campaign. He is facing 42 criminal charges related to losses at 1MDB and other state entities.
Prosecutors accuse Najib of pocketing U.S. $681 million from 1MDB, saying the money was used to fund a lavish lifestyle for the former leader and his wife, Rosmah Mansor, who is also facing corruption charges. Najib and Low have denied any wrongdoings.
When asked by BenarNews, Mahathir said that he did not raise the Jho Low issue with Chinese President Xi Jinping during his visit to Beijing last month.
"I didn't discuss it. There are people who say Jho Low is in China. I didn't raise that question, but police, they are looking for evidence on his whereabouts, as some say he is in China."
Abdul Hamid said on Wednesday that he believes Low "has the protection of someone" who provided him a safe haven in a certain country, Reuters news agency reported.
"Our investigations found that he is free to move around, and able to run his businesses without any restrictions," Abdul Hamid said.
Asked if Malaysian authorities would be able to secure Jho Low's return, he said: "I am confident."
Hamid's predecessor Mohamad Fuzi Harun was quoted saying last year that Malaysian police had sent a team to Hong Kong to track down Low, but were unsuccessful.
In January, Fuzi had said that police met with authorities in China to track down the fugitive, reports said.
 


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BENARNEWS- BenarNews sat down with Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad on Thursday for an interview in New York on the sidelines of this week's U.N. General Assembly.
At 94, Mahathir is the world's oldest head of state, after leading the opposition Pakatan Harapan (Alliance of Hope) to an upset victory in Malaysia's 2018 general election. The former strongman served as PM from 1981 to 2003, but quit the party he once led and swept to power on a promise to wipe out corruption and bring change to the multi-racial, multi-religious country.
The prime minister answered questions on topics ranging from racial polarization in the country to China's role in the region, to the whereabouts of Low Taek Jho, a central figure in Malaysia's 1MDB financial scandal.
He said that Malaysia, an Islamic-majority country, must take care "not to antagonize China" over issues including Beijing's persecution of the Uyghur Muslim minority and territorial disputes in the South China Sea.
Mahathir also spoke about Kuala Lumpur's efforts to broker peace talks in Thailand's insurgency-ridden Deep South, saying that Bangkok would never allow the region independence or autonomy.
Excerpts from the interview, which was conducted in English and Malay, have been edited for clarity:
On politics at home
BenarNews: Has Pakatan Harapan fulfilled its electoral pledges, such as repealing SOSMA [the Security Offenses (Special Measures) Act] and the Sedition Act? In the past you described those laws as tyrannical.
Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad: True. But when we made our manifesto, we didn't have full information about the situation.
Now we understand that if we were to rush to revoke those laws, there could be a reaction which may be unfavorable for Malaysia. Police have the opinion that these laws, if they are not used for political purposes, are still useful.
BN: So they will not be repealed, because they are still useful?
MM: We are revising them. We do not want the abuse that was done by the previous government to be seen in our government.
BN: Top Muslim-based parties in Malaysia have formed an alliance and are most probably going to challenge your multi-racial coalition in the next election, in 2023. Could this new alliance worsen racial and religious polarization in Malaysia?
MM: It will, to a certain extent. But in the past we have had experience campaigning against PAS [the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party], which was trying to make use of religion in order to gain popularity, but they never made any headway.
BN: What will your government do to counter perceptions that the government is not supporting Malays and even not supporting Islam?
MM: That is opposition propaganda. They are trying to make use of the Malays and to appear to be speaking up for the Malays in order to gain support, especially in the rural areas. But they know that before, the United Malays National Organization (UMNO) was neglecting the Malays when it was being led by Najib Razak. So I don't think they have that credibility.
In any case, we find that many UMNO people have left the party. The remnants are still trying to resuscitate the party, and they think that if they play the Malay card they might, but I don't think their influence is enough for them to come back.
On regional issues
BN: In recent days, you have said the world can essentially do nothing about forest fires in Indonesia or Brazil. So there's nothing really that can be done now, you think.
MM: At the moment, no. But I think even Indonesia is very conscious of this ... I think they themselves are suffering. I'm quite sure they will make some attempt to reduce incidents of forest fires.
BN: Speaking about the Rohingya issue at Columbia University yesterday you also said some pessimistic words, essentially saying there's practically nothing that can be done when a government is being absolutely brutal to its people. We can preach, we can pray, we can ask them "please don't do such things," but they can continue doing it because we don't invade countries to remove such regimes."
But isn't there something, some kind of measures between invasion and mere words that can be taken, and shouldn't ASEAN be doing those things?
MM: We are doing those things, but they look like palliative things, like trying to help people who are suffering, if they evacuate, if they migrate, we will look after them. There are 100,000 of them in Malaysia, we know their children are not going to schools, we have to solve that problem, this we can do, but outside of Myanmar.
Inside of Myanmar we can do very little. Although some people claim that they can, but as far as the Rohingya are concerned, the place is not safe and they refuse to go back.
BN: Looking at the haze problem and the Rohingya crisis, both of which have persisted for decades, should ASEAN reconsider its policy of non-interference?
MM: Well, we ourselves are not strong enough, we cannot do such things. But the big powers can. For example, in the case of Saddam Hussein, they went in, they thought they could do the job in three months, so they went in, but you know that it lasted very much longer.
In the case of Cambodia, the world did nothing. Two million people were massacred, and the world did nothing. We knew all about it, but we didn't do anything because this is supposed to be "an internal affair."
On southern Thai peace talks
BN: Malaysia is facilitating peace talks in the Deep South of Thailand. Should Malaysia continue in this role? Some say Malaysia cannot be neutral because of ethnic ties to the insurgents, or because it is protecting its border.
MM: We will continue our efforts to persuade Thai participants to stop actions that cause many people to die, people who are not guilty, people who are not in the military. They need to consider this, if not, the world will be angry with them.
On the other hand, as we know, we worked so many years in the Philippines, and at last we succeeded because the Duterte government agreed to give autonomy, but not Thailand. They have said from the start, no autonomy. And we also think war won't result in autonomy or independence, so it's better to find a safer way, to accept the reality that Thailand will not allow them freedom.
BN: An insurgent leader said they didn't want Malaysia to be the facilitator, or maybe they wanted to have another facilitator that is more neutral, perhaps from a European country. And BRN [the National Revolutionary Front rebel group] said the same thing during its anniversary.
MM: Yes, if it's possible and if it's accepted by both parties, the insurgents and the government, if they agree, we have no objection to anyone who is capable of being the facilitator.
BN: The Thai government has introduced a new chief negotiator for the government side. Can you comment? Do you think this will just slow down the process?
MM: We will try to work together with this new leader, because we only want to find ways to end the unrest because, in our opinion, there is no way that Thailand will allow them to have autonomy or independence, and it could lead to Thailand becoming hardline, and many more will die.
I look highly upon people who are brave and patriotic, but what is the use if you can't achieve your goals?
On Uyghurs, ASEAN and China
BN: Malaysian leaders, especially you, are well known for speaking out about the Palestinians and the Rohingya Muslims. But so far not the Uyghurs as much.
Our sister news agency, Radio Free Asia (RFA), has broken this story, reporting that 1 million Uyghurs are being detained against their will and subjected to political indoctrination, poor diet, crowded conditions. Recently a Jordanian journalist, an independent journalist, visited the Xinjiang Autonomous Region, and described it as one big prison. She said, "the reports are true."
Why are leaders of Muslim countries silent when it comes to the Uyghurs, relatively speaking, and does it have to do with China?
MM: Because China is a very powerful nation. You don't just try and do something which would fail anyway, so it is better to find some other less violent ways not to antagonize China too much, because China is beneficial for us.
Of course it's is a big trading partner of ours and you do not want to do something that will fail, and in the process, also, we will suffer.
BN: ASEAN and China have been talking about a code of conduct in the South China Sea for two decades, and now Malaysia and China, as we recently reported, have agreed to a bilateral mechanism to resolve sea disputes. Are ASEAN states abandoning the multilateral approach?
MM: No. We are still wanting to work together but our response depends on how much we are exposed. When we find that we ourselves singled out by China for some action, I don't think the other ASEAN countries have the capacity to put a stop to it. So like it or not, we have to deal with China by ourselves.
The same applies to the Philippines. Because although ASEAN wants to work together, there are things that it's not able to do. So because of that, well, even working together without any violence, that's possible, we can have a firm stand on something, but if the Chinese take action, we are not in a position to resist or to act against them.
BN: I hear you speaking very pragmatically and fatalistically, that you cannot speak out against China if it's a moral wrong, or if it has to do with territory; that economic matters and the sheer might of China make that impossible.
MM: Yeah, we have to accept the fact that China is a big power. You know, the Malay states have existed near China for the past 2,000 years. We have survived because we know how to conduct ourselves.
We don't go around trying to be aggressive when we don't have the capacity, so we use other means. In the past we use to send to China gold and silver flowers every year as a symbol of our being practically, well, subservient to them.
BN: Another question about China. Chinese survey ships that reportedly conduct research related to oil and gas exploration have been sighted in Malaysia's exclusive economic zone north of Borneo. Do they have your government's permission to operate in Malaysian waters?
MM: No. They don't have. And well, we watch what they are doing, we report what they are doing, but we do not chase them away or try to be aggressive.
BN: Where is Jho Low? Which country is sheltering him? Did you discuss this with Xi Jinping during your visit to China?
MM: I didn't discuss it. There are people who say Jho Low is in China. I didn't raise that question, but police, they are looking for evidence on his whereabouts, as some say he is in China. I am confident that the IGP [Inspector General of Police] will contact his counterpart in China to obtain acknowledgement, if he can, and evidence that he [Jho Low] is in China.
On North Korea
BN: How did the chemical weapons used in the murder of Kim Jong Nam get into Malaysia?
MM: A lot of things enter Malaysia. Recently we found five tons of cocaine. There's a certain route by which many forbidden things can get into Malaysia. We don't know how it came in, and that thing is not big, it's small, whereas large quantities of drugs can enter Malaysia, sometimes we manage to seize them and sometimes we are unable to.
BN: The two young women who had been charged with killing Kim Jong Nam have gone home to their countries. The murder case has been closed. Looking back, was Malaysia right to allow North Korean diplomats to leave the country with the body of Kim Jong Nam? Would you have done something different had you been in government then?
MM: Well, I don't know what the thinking of the previous government was, but I think they too would like to avoid having confrontation with other countries. Malaysia's main policy is to be friendly with all countries. We do not like to have any problem with them, any conflict with them.
So I suppose on that basis they allowed the body to be taken back. Even if I were already the prime minister, I would have to think very carefully about not sending the body back. We would have a problem on our hands.
BN: What is the future of relations with North Korea? Will you be reopening the Malaysian embassy in Pyongyang?
MM: I think we will.
BN: There are some who could say that Malaysia is not taking a very firm stance against a country that's widely considered a rogue nation.
MM: Yes, it is a rogue nation in the eyes of a lot of other countries. We have had diplomatic relations with North Korea over a long period of time. I myself visited North Korea when I was deputy prime minister.
It is part of our policy of having good relations with all countries regardless of their ideology, unless of course there is something very violent happening. If they go to war, we may have to decide whom to side with. But at the moment, they seem to be under pressure, and we don't think that we should confront them or take sides in their dispute with mainly the United States.
On plans to step down as PM
BN: Are you comfortable to be handing over the reins in 2020? Are you confident in Anwar Ibrahim as the next leader, or are you perhaps a bit heavy-hearted about this transition?
MM: What I feel doesn't count. The fact is that I made a promise that I would step down and he will take over. I will keep that promise.
BN: What are your hopes for Malaysia in 2023 and GE [General Election]-15? What do you see as the most important part of your legacy?
MM: I'm confident we still can win, that Pakatan Harapan will win the election, even though not as strongly. We got support in GE-14 because many people do not like Datuk Seri Najib [former Prime Minister Najib Razak].
If he is no longer involved in leading the party that is now in the opposition, if he is not involved, they may regain some support back, but not enough for them to win the general election, because UMNO has become a small party. Many of their members have already left UMNO and many of them have joined government-component parties.
I'm not too concerned about my legacy. I just want to work as hard as I can to bring Malaysia back to the right path.
BN: On the social media front, there appears to be some confusion as Najib counters government positions.
MM: Najib is still a free man. He is not detained. He is free to do whatever. We find that he has money and so he can have cyber troopers who will respond through social media.
With the existence of social media, we cannot control it, and that is why we listen to his opinion even though he tries to blame the government, but most of his allegations against Pakatan Harapan are a result of his doing.
For example, he ordered four patrol ships during his time so now we are bound by a contract, we have to buy. He chided us, saying it was not right to buy the ships from China, but the contract was made by him, so it is as if he forgot about what he has done, and we can counter that.


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BENARNEWS- China's economic and military strength may have prevented Muslim nations from criticizing its repression of the ethnic Uyghur minority, and Southeast Asian nations from questioning Beijing's increasingly assertive actions in the South China Sea, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said.
In an interview with BenarNews, Mahathir suggested that China would most probably ignore them even if they criticized Beijing, adding that it was better not to antagonize the Asian giant and face negative consequences.
Mahathir has been a big champion of issues affecting the Muslim community, including the Rohingya, more than 740,000 of whom have fled to Bangladesh following a brutal crackdown by Myanmar's military two years ago. He has also persistently condemned Israel's actions against Palestinians.
But the 94-year-old leader has been relatively quiet on Beijing's repression in Xinjiang, where it has been accused of holding more than 1.5 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in a vast network of internment camps since April 2017.
Asked about the apparent contradiction and the Muslim world's general reluctance to criticize Beijing over the Uyghur issue, Mahathir cited what he described as the power wielded by China.
"Because China is a very powerful nation," he told BenarNews. "You don't just try and do something which would anyway fail, so it is better to find some other less violent ways not to antagonize China too much, because China is beneficial for us.
"Of course it's a big trading partner of ours, and you do not want to do something that will fail, and in the process, also, we will suffer," said Mahathir, who has never held back his criticism against the United States and other Western powers over various issues.
Human rights groups have attacked Mahathir and the 57-nation Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) for not speaking up for the Uyghurs when countries such as the United States had described Beijing's actions in Xinjiang as "the stain of the century."
"When even outspoken leaders like Mahathir bite their tongue rather than criticize, it illustrates the incredible steps China is taking to intimidate critics both near and far," Phil Robertson, the deputy Asia director for New York-based HRW, told BenarNews.
"Like the rest of the OIC, Malaysia crumbled under pressure when it came time to speak the truth about the Uyghurs to the powers that be in Beijing. Mahathir should have bucked the trend and condemned the violations of rights and freedom of religion suffered by the Uyghurs," he said.
Mujahid Yusof Rawa, Malaysia's Islamic affairs minister, also came under fire recently for describing a Uyghur camp he visited in Xinjiang as a "training and vocational center" in line with Beijing's claims.
Beijing said the Uyghurs had been put in "education and training centers," calling them "schools that help the people free themselves from terrorism and extremism and acquire useful skills."
 

 
Mahathir: ASEAN can't stand up against Beijing
Mahathir also told Benar that Southeast Asian nations would not be able to stand up as a group to China's growing assertiveness as Beijing reinforces its claims to nearly the entire South China Sea.
Beijing has installed anti-ship cruise missile and surface-to-air missile systems on three islands in the Spratlys, a disputed group of atolls and isles in the sea, according to experts.
Malaysia, a Muslim-majority nation of 33 million people, as well as the Philippines, Brunei and Vietnam, are among members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) that have overlapping claims with Beijing on the South China Sea. About U.S. $5 trillion in ship-borne trade passes through the waterway each year.
"When we find that we ourselves [are] singled out by China for some action, I don't think the other ASEAN countries have the capacity to put a stop to it. So like it or not, we have to deal with China by ourselves," Mahathir said.
"Because although ASEAN wants to work together, there are things that it's not able to do," he said. "So because of that, well, even working together without any violence, that's possible, we can have a firm stand on something, but if the Chinese take action, we are not in a position to resist or to act against them."
Recently, the Chinese coast guard was tracked around an oil rig on Malaysia's continental shelf and Chinese survey ships, which reportedly conduct research related to oil and gas exploration, were sighted in Malaysia's exclusive economic zone off Borneo.
Asked about the Chinese survey ships, Mahathir said they had not obtained the Malaysian government's permission to operate in Malaysian waters.
"No. They don't have. And well, we watch what they are doing, we report what they are doing, but we do not chase them away or try to be aggressive," he said.
"We have to accept the fact that China is a big power. You know, the Malay states have existed near China for the past two thousand years. We have survived because we know how to conduct ourselves," Mahathir said. "We don't go around trying to be aggressive when we don't have the capacity, so we use other means."


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BENARNEWS- Malaysia will carry on with brokering peace talks in Thailand's insurgency-stricken Deep South, but Bangkok will never agree to autonomy or independence for the region, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad told BenarNews in an exclusive interview.
BenarNews sat down with Mahathir in New York on Thursday, on the sidelines of this week's United Nations General Assembly. Mahathir said Malaysian facilitators would work with Gen. Wanlop Rugsanaoh, the outgoing head of Thailand's National Security Council, whose appointment to lead the Thai delegation in the southern peace talks was announced the same day.
"We will try to work together with this new leader, because we only want to find ways to end the unrest because, in our opinion, there is no way that Thailand will allow them to have autonomy or independence and it could lead to Thailand becoming hardline, and many more will die," Mahathir said.
"I look highly upon people who are brave and patriotic, but what is the use if you can't achieve your goals?"
Mahathir confirmed that Malaysia planned to have a role in efforts to broker peace led by facilitator Abdul Rahim Noor.
"We will continue our efforts to persuade Thai participants to stop actions that cause many people to die, people who are not guilty, people who are not in the military. They need to consider this, if not, the world will be angry with them," he told Benar.
"On the other hand, as we know, we worked so many years in the Philippines, and at last we succeeded because the Duterte government agreed to give autonomy, but not Thailand. They have said from the start, no autonomy," the prime minister said.
He was alluding to Malaysia's role in helping bring about a 2014 peace deal between Manila and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front guerrilla group that led to the creation this year of an autonomous Muslim region in the southern Philippines.
"And we also think war won't result in autonomy or independence, so it's better to find a safer way, to accept the reality that Thailand will not allow them freedom," Mahathir said.
In southern Thailand, Malaysia has facilitated peace efforts between the government and MARA Patani, a panel of negotiators representing Deep South rebel groups and factions, since 2015.
Kuala Lumpur had also brokered direct peace talks between Thailand and Barisan Nasional Revolusi (BRN), the largest of the armed separatist groups in the southern border region. But those efforts stalled in December 2013 under a civilian-led government, which was toppled in a military coup five months later.
The earlier talks hit a snag when BRN chief negotiator Hassan Bin Toyib announced five demands via a video posted on YouTube that the government rejected. In the video, he demanded that Thailand grant sovereignty to all territory within the Deep South and recognize "the Patani Malay nation."
The talks with MARA Patani appeared to have also stalled. So far, they have yielded no breakthroughs and have been dogged by allegations that hardcore BRN leaders, who command guerrillas in the field, were not participating and did not support the effort.
In an interview with BenarNews in July, Sukree Hari, who led BRN representatives on the MARA Patani panel until he resigned in May, slammed the Thai government over the negotiations.
"Whatever was agreed together at the negotiating table, the Thai side was not willing to sign, and that is clear proof that the Thai side was just pretending in the negotiations, playing for time," he said during the interview in northern Malaysia.
In March, in an apparent criticism of Malaysia's role as facilitator of peace talks, the BRN released a video to mark its 59th anniversary where it asked the international community to help solve the conflict, while it pledged to continue with its separatist fight.
"So, to all Patani people, let us continue this struggle until the end," said the lone BRN speaker who identified himself as Abdul Karim Khalib in videos released by the group in 2013. "Be patient of suffering, be patient of difficulties. Sustainable peace is [a]waiting us."
When asked to comment on BRN's rejection of Malaysia as a peace broker, Mahathir expressed openness in allowing other countries or parties to mediate between the warring sides.
"Yes, it's possible and if it's accepted by both parties, the insurgents and the government, if they agree, we have no objection to anyone who is capable of being the facilitator," he said.
 

 
Thai lawmakers want to participate
In June, a trio of politicians from the Deep South had called for parliamentarians to be able to participate in future peace talks.
Areepen Utarasint, who retired from parliament after nine terms representing Narathiwat province, said at the time that residents wanted to feel like they were represented in Bangkok.
Sukarno Matha, a current Deep South MP from the opposition Prachachart Party, said he supported Areepen's call.
"In the past, the committee led by the southern army commander, did not open a room for local politicians," Sukarno told BenarNews. "There should be MPs included in committees which could have roles in the peace talks."
The Malay-speaking and predominantly Muslim Deep South borders Malaysia and encompasses Pattani, Narathiwat and Yala provinces as well as four districts in Songkhla province. Nearly 7,000 people have been killed in violence in the region since the separatist insurgency reignited in early 2004.


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BENARNEWS- A 36-year-old Malaysian man said he was ready to die for the Islamic State militant organization – but that was before his February 2016 arrest and subsequent rehabilitation.
The man told reporters Tuesday that he ran 13 chat groups on WhatsApp and Telegram and had recruited 50 to become members of the Islamic State (IS) extremist group. Malaysian corrections officials denied journalists who interviewed the man permission to use his real name because of his former ties to IS.
"Yes, I would [die for IS] but, thank God, that I did not get to that stage," he said.
The man was part of a group of IS members in Malaysia who were convicted and sentenced in April 2016 to two years in prison and rehabilitation program under the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2002 for involvement in IS activities. His charges were tied to recruiting and spreading propaganda as well as helping others collect funds to help those who wanted to travel to Syria and Iraq to join IS fighters.
"To me, the rehabilitation program worked. Who thought they would be able to change my ideology, but they did eventually," the former IS member told reporters after launching a three-day workshop at Kajang Prison in Selangor state on preventing and countering violent extremism.
"If you asked me when I was first arrested and put in jail, I would diss the facilitators and the people who worked in the rehabilitation program for their inability to counter my argument," he said.
"But sessions with religious figures, preachers they brought in sometimes weekly, biweekly or monthly depending on the availability of the individuals, helped me to understand religion better."
The man said he became involved with IS at a time when he wanted to learn more about Islam.
"There was no problem back home, my life was fine. But at the time, I was looking for the true Islamic teaching and every day I saw videos of the injustice done against fellow Muslims abroad on Facebook and reading the materials that made me angry," he said.
"I could not just stand and talk about the injustice. I felt that it was my responsibility to help my Muslim brothers and sisters," he said.
The workshop included officers from religious departments, the Southeast Asia Regional Center for Counter Terrorism (SEARCCT), the Royal Malaysia Police, the Attorney General's Chamber and the Malaysia Prisons Department.
The man said he became an IS cell leader and established the Al Qubro Generation, a Telegram group tasked with recruiting IS members and collecting funds to help those who wanted to travel to Syria. The group collected 15,000 ringgit (U.S. $3,577) in three months.
"After I created my own group, I let go of the others and put all my focus into one. I named the group Al Qubro Generation to take on the name of Al-Malhama Al-Kubra, the great battle prophesied to occur at the end of time between Muslims and unbelievers. And the generation for those in the group who were ready to fight in the war," he said.
Since his release from prison in April 2018, the former IS recruiter has been assisting Malaysian corrections officials and other authorities to spread awareness through forums and interviews.
"This is more of me redeeming myself by sharing what happened to me and what I had done wrong in the past, so that the others would not be easily influenced by IS propaganda," he said.
Rehabilitation starts day one
The rehabilitation and reintegration into society of radical inmates starts on the day they report to prison and continues until they leave, said Zulkifli Omar, director general of the Prisons Department.
"All prisoners must follow the human development program handled by well-trained prison officers," Zulkifli said.
Malaysia has 116 radical detainees along with 2,000 listed as high-risk detainees among 72,000 prisoners serving their sentences at the 53 prisons nationwide, according to Malaysian prison statistics released Tuesday.
Zainal Abidin Abu Hassan, deputy secretary-general at the Ministry of Home Affairs, said the workshop was part of its effort to develop a National Plan of Action for Preventing Violent Extremism.
"This program involves many parties and this showed that collaboration and cooperation is important in controlling, managing and rehabilitating, especially in terms of deradicalization and establishing a counter narrative related to extremism and radicalism," he said.


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BENARNEWS- Malaysia expressed "serious displeasure" Wednesday over a foreign news report quoting a diplomat from the country as criticizing internment camps for ethnic Uyghurs in China's Xinjiang region.
Malaysia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs was referring to a New York Times article last week that published quotes from a "private account" by the Malaysian diplomat who had visited some of the camps in two Xinjiang cities.
China has come under fire for placing more than one million Uyghurs and other Muslims minorities in a vast network of internment camps since April 2017, accusing them of harboring "strong religious views" and politically incorrect ideas.
Beijing has been calling these camps boarding schools and vocational centers.
"Delegates could actually sense fear and frustration from the students," the Malaysian diplomat wrote after his December visit with a dozen other diplomats from mostly Muslim nations, the New York Times reported.
"China may have legitimate reasons to implement policies intended to eliminate the threat of terrorism, especially in Xinjiang. However, judging by its approach, it is addressing the issue wrongly and illegitimately, e.g. preventing Muslim minors from learning the Quran," the diplomat was quoted saying in his report.
The diplomat referred to the once-bustling Kashgar and Hotan cities in Xinjiang as "zombie towns," saying the streets were virtually empty and that China was probably "using the threat of terrorism as an excuse to 'sanitize' Uighur Muslims until they become acceptable Chinese citizens."
The Malaysian foreign ministry said in a statement that the New York Times report "appears to carry malicious intent," adding that it "expresses serious displeasure at and disapproves" of the article.
"The ministry does not comment on the specifics of its internal communications, which are a matter of strict confidentiality," the statement said, underscoring close ties between Malaysia and China. "Those communications are not meant to be made public."
In its report titled "China wants the world to stay silent on Muslim camps," the Times raised questions on China's claim that its state-mandated detention camps, surrounded by high walls and watchtowers, are central to its fight against Muslim extremism.
Beijing has described them as boarding schools, explaining that detainees are in the camps voluntarily, the Times report said, as it explained how China would generally handpick visitors, including journalists from friendly countries who are then often quoted in the state-run Chinese news media offering flattering comments.
But such trips "do not always go as planned," the Times article said. It quoted two reports – one from European Union officials and another from a Malaysian diplomat who visited Kashgar and Hotan cities in Xinjian last year with a dozen other diplomats from mostly Muslim nations.
The report quoted the Malaysian as saying that delegates in the trip "could actually sense fear and frustration from the 'students'" in the internment camps.
In July, Malaysia's Islamic Affairs minister came under sharp criticism after describing a Uyghur internment camp that he visited in China as a "training and vocational center," contradicting U.S. officials and rights groups that have likened such facilities to concentration camps.
"The Center is running industrial training activities with various skills such as sewing, legislation, art, flower arrangement and et cetera," said a caption for one of the photos posted on June 26 on Minister Mujahid Yusof Rawa's Facebook page. The official declined to disclose the location of the Uyghur camp that he had visited in China.
Chinese authorities label the camps as centers for "transformation-through-education" but most people refer to them simply as "re-education camps," according to Amnesty International.
Prime minister questioned about Uyghurs
The statement issued by Malaysia's foreign office on Wednesday came days after Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad told BenarNews, during an interview in New York, that China's diplomatic and economic power may have prevented Muslim nations from criticizing its repression of the ethnic Uyghur minority.
Mahathir, a champion of issues affecting the Muslim community, has been relatively quiet on Beijing's repression in Xinjiang, where it has been accused of holding more than 1.5 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in a vast network of internment camps and systematic surveillance since April 2017.
Asked about the apparent contradiction and the Muslim world's general reluctance to criticize Beijing over the Uyghur issue, Mahathir cited what he described as the power wielded by China.
"Because China is a very powerful nation," the 94-year-old leader told BenarNews. "You don't just try and do something which would anyway fail, so it is better to find some other less violent ways not to antagonize China too much, because China is beneficial for us."
But China's sweeping confinement of Uyghurs has spurred criticisms from human rights groups, which have criticized Mahathir and the 57-nation Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) for not speaking up for the Uyghurs when countries such as the United States had described Beijing's actions in Xinjiang as "the stain of the century."


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BENARNEWS- Malaysian officials unveiled a new "security and public order" policy on Thursday but said the government needed more time to finalize changes to controversial security laws it had earlier promised to repeal.
In a speech at the Ministry of Home Affairs, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said nations were grappling with challenges ranging from cross-border crime to piracy, smuggling, money-laundering and "ideological threats contrary to the religion, culture and legislation of the State."
"To address these threats, a holistic policy is needed, and this includes having to form strategic partnerships at a global level," he said. "This is especially necessary in the face of complex security threats that are difficult to handle in conventional ways."
The policy, which was distributed to journalists, outlined security priorities and challenges without going into detail on how they would be addressed.
In his speech, Mahathir said security agencies should change from traditional to technology-based approaches, such as use of artificial intelligence, drones, automation, cloud computing and the internet, to reduce costs and resource use while improving efficiency.
Home Minister Muhyiddin Yassin said the new policy was a continuity of old policy, with improvements.
Asked by reporters what security laws would be amended in the next sitting of parliament, beginning Oct. 15, he said the government was not prepared to submit amendments to the controversial Security Offenses (Special Measures) Act, better known as SOSMA.
"The latest law that we are looking into is the preventive law SOSMA, but we are not done with it yet. We have yet to engage with many parties or get into the suggestions. I am not sure if we can make it or not to bring it to this parliament session," Muhyiddin said.
Ahead of the May 2018 general election, Mahathir's Pakatan Harapan (Alliance of Hope) coalition had promised to repeal controversial security laws and provisions, including SOSMA, the colonial-era Sedition Act, and the 2015 Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA), among others.
The laws authorize detention of suspects up to 28 days (SOSMA) or two years (POTA) without a warrant, while the Sedition Act has been used against critics of Malaysia's leaders, including political cartoonist Zunar and activist Maria Chin Abdullah.
In an interview with BenarNews in New York last week, Mahathir said that when making those pledges during the campaign season, "we didn't have full information about the situation."
"Police have the opinion that these laws, if they are not used for political purposes, are still useful," he said, adding that instead of repealing, "we are revising them."
In October 2018, Communications and Multimedia Minister Gobind Singh Deo said the cabinet had agreed on a moratorium on use of the Sedition Act, pending its appeal.
But the moratorium was lifted in November 2018 after rioting near a Hindu temple outside Kuala Lumpur raised fears of inter-religious violence in the Muslim majority country.
In January, three people were arrested under the Sedition Act for allegedly posting insulting remarks about the former king, Sultan Muhammad V, after his surprise abdication.


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BENARNEWS- Malaysian authorities have arrested 94 people in connection with a ring that smuggled in men and women from Myanmar through Thailand but was broken up by raids in late September, Malaysia's police chief said Thursday.
Police Inspector-General Abdul Hamid Bador issued a news release announcing that 11 men from Myanmar taken into custody on Sept. 30 were linked to more than 80 people from Myanmar and Malaysia who were captured during a series of raids between Sept. 22 and 25. At least 83 of the 94 were people smuggled in from Myanmar, officials said.
Officers said one of the men captured on Monday had a U.N. refugee card. Police arrested him at a bus station in Selangor state along with three other suspects.
Acting on a tip after the arrests, police that same day raided a house in Puchong where they arrested seven more men, all believed to have been brought into the country by smugglers.
"All those detained and arrested from Myanmar were Rohingya, the same as the previous arrests," a police source who was not cleared to discuss the investigation told BenarNews.
The source was referring to the earlier raids in the Klang Valley, Kelantan and Penang that resulted in the arrests of five men and one woman from Malaysia along with 74 men and three women from Myanmar, according to police.
"The syndicate involved locals and foreigners moving through Thailand and smuggling the migrants across the river to Rantau Panjang, Kelantan. All the migrants were sent by transport agents to other states to work in various sectors on the Malaysian peninsula," Abdul Hamid said.
Five of the Myanmar suspects were listed as transport agents while the others were targets of the traffickers, according to police. A Malaysian man was listed as the head of the trafficking syndicate and the woman listed as the assistant head, while the other Malaysians were identified as transport agents.
Police did not release the names of the 94 people who were being held under Malaysia's Immigration Act or the Security Offenses (Special Measures) Act.
Previously, police announced that, on Sept. 24, officers shot and killed a 37-year-old Malaysian man thought to be a member of the syndicate. Selangor state police Chief Noor Azam Jamaluddin said the dead suspect had a lengthy criminal record including arrests on charges related to theft, drugs and extortion.
"A Myanmar national we believed was a middleman met the suspect and that was when police moved in to apprehend them," Azam said at the time.
Police had trailed the suspect from Kelantan state, 300 km (186 miles) before attempting to apprehend him near Kuala Lumpur.
On Sept. 26, Cheong Koon Kock, deputy director the federal police's special branch, said police had opened their investigation in April after learning about the syndicate.
He said the syndicate would transport the Myanmar nationals through Thailand where they would board boats to be taken across the border to Kelantan state, the most northeastern state in Peninsular Malaysia.


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BENARNEWS- Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said he discussed concerns about the Rohingya Muslim minority and the impact of climate change with U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet on Friday during the first-ever visit to Malaysia by a top rights official in the world body.
Their 90-minute meeting was closed to the media and neither spoke afterward. Bachelet made Malaysia her first visit to Southeast Asia since her appointment in September 2018 as the U.N.'s human rights chief.
Mahathir, who raised similar concerns when speaking at the United Nations General Assembly in New York last week, posted a tweet to his official account after Friday's meeting.
"Had the pleasure of receiving U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet today. We discussed Malaysia's effort during UNGA last week in highlighting human rights issues such as the plight of the Rohingya and how climate change will affect human rights," he tweeted.
Earlier Friday, Bachelet, who was on a four-day visit to Malaysia, met with Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah, who had extended an invitation to her to visit Malaysia on the sidelines of a human rights event in Geneva in February.
In addition to their meeting, Bachelet and Saifuddin visited a school for 41 Rohingya children founded by a Muslim NGO outside Kuala Lumpur. The Muslim-majority country is a top destination in Southeast Asia for Rohingya, whose persecution in Myanmar had forced them to flee overseas, mainly to Bangladesh.
About one million Rohingya refugees are sheltering in Bangladesh. Most of them fled after Myanmar government security forces launched a brutal crackdown in August 2017 in the wake of deadly attacks by Rohingya insurgents on police and army posts in Rakhine state. Various U.N. and international agencies and NGOs described the campaign as ethnic cleaning, if not genocidal.
Efforts to repatriate them back to Myanmar had failed because the Rohingya were worried about their security.

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Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad (left) greets U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights in Kuala Lumpur, Oct. 4, 2019. [Courtesy Prime Minister's Office]

At the U.N. General Assembly in New York last month, Mahathir criticized the Myanmar government, led by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, for dragging its feet to resolve the Rohingya crisis and U.N. for its "deafening" silence.
Bachelet posted a tweet on her account following the visit: "Everyone has a right to #education. Everyone deserves the chance to learn skills to build a better future. It was a pleasure to visit the #Rohingya Integrated School of Excellence, an alternative learning center in #Malaysia for #refugees from #Myanmar."
Saifuddin said that Mahathir's government welcomed visits by U.N. officials to the country.
"Prior to this, the government did not have an open invitation. There were also times when U.N. high commissioners' or rapporteurs' requests to visit in Malaysia were even turned down," he told reporters.
Malaysia is transparent and the high commissioners and U.N. rapporteurs who come to the country are free to write reports and make suggestions, Saifuddin added.

"The present government has nothing to hide and if there are weaknesses in the administration, we are prepared to improve as we are really open." he said.

The foreign affairs ministry issued a statement on Thursday calling Bachelet's visit an acknowledgement of Malaysia's effort to improve human rights since Mahathir's government took power in May 2018. She is expected to meet with members of the Human Rights Commission (Suhakam) on Saturday.


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BENARNEWS- Malaysia anti-corruption agency issued notices on Monday to the brother of former Prime Minister Najib Razak and 79 other individuals and organizations, ordering them to return large sums of money allegedly received from troubled state fund 1MDB or face fines.
Nazir Razak and the others received 420 million ringgit (U.S. $100 million) from 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), said Latheefa Koya, who heads the Malaysia Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC).
Latheefa said those named people and organizations have two weeks to return the money or face a fine up to 2.5 times the amount owed. The 80 are being investigated under Malaysia's Anti-Money Laundering and Anti-Terrorism Financing Act.
"The fine will be as low as the amount they have received or as high as 2.5 times the amount they received. We hope to recover as much as we can," Latheefa told reporters Monday. "It's up to them to pay the fine, failing which, we will use the full authority of the powers that were given within the act to take the necessary action."
Najib is currently on trial in two corruption cases tied to the alleged theft of billions of dollars from 1MDB, a fund he established in 2009 to spur economic development in his country. Altogether, he faces 42 charges of abuse of power, corruption and money laundering, among other alleged crimes.
Latheefa said that Najib's brother Nazir, the former chairman of the CIMB banking group, had received the most money among the named individuals, adding that more names were expected to be added to the list.
"The list will show that the amount for Nazir, if I'm not mistaken, is about 25.7 million ringgit ($6.1 million)," she said.
Solar Shine Sdn Bhd, a company specializing in organizing events, had received 134 million ringgit ($32 million) in 1MDB money.
"They received it the money through checks – that is why we are able to confirm the trail and track with conviction. We are very clear where the money is from," she said.
Others named include Ahmad Maslan, a former deputy minister who became an opposition MP after last year's Pakatan Harapan electoral upset over Najib's Barisan Nasional coalition.
In a short statement to reporters, Ahmad denied receiving 1MDB funds.
"I have been investigated by the police and the MACC. I informed them that I have never received a check with the amount shown on the check copy linked to me," he said, adding, "I have also signed documents to the police and MACC that I did not received funds as stated."
The announcement is different than the civil forfeiture lawsuits related to 1MDB filed in June against 41 individuals and organizations to recover 270 million ringgit ($64.5 million).
Corruption trial begins
Latheefa made her announcement on the same day that the former chairman of the Federal Land Development Authority (Felda) appeared in court for the first day of his trial on corruption charges.
Prosecutors allege that Mohd Isa Abdul Samad received 3 million ringgit ($716,000) in 2014 and 2015 for assisting in the sale of Merdeka Palace Hotel and Suites in Kuching to the Felda Investment Corp. Sdn Bhd at an inflated price, according to media reports.
Isa pleaded not guilty in December to one count of criminal breach of trust and nine counts of receiving gratification.


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BENARNEWS- Malaysian lawmakers voted Wednesday to abolish a "fake news" law passed ahead of last year's general election, while the nation's oldest Malay-language daily, partly owned by the party ousted in the polls, narrowly avoided shutting its doors.
After two days of debate, MPs voted 93-53 in favor of repealing the law. The vote occurred five days after Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said that his government would dump "draconian laws" imposed by Najib Razak, whose government lost the May 2018 election.
Such laws "resulted in the people feeling very insecure because they could be arrested and detained without the need to be heard in a court of law," the state-run news service Bernama quoted Mahathir as saying. "But the new government will repeal the laws and introduce new laws."
Legislators under Najib's government hurriedly passed the Anti-Fake News Act 2018 weeks before the election. Rights groups had described the law's penalties and broad language as an effort to muzzle discussion about the corruption-tainted 1MDB state fund founded by Najib 10 years ago.
The law punishes the deliberate spread of false information with hefty fines – up to 500,000 ringgit ($119,000) – and prison terms of up to six years.
In August 2018, parliament's lower house voted to repeal the law, but the move was blocked by the Senate, which was controlled by Najib's party. Under parliamentary rules, the Senate cannot block a parliamentary vote on a bill a second time.
Human Rights Watch said Wednesday's vote to repeal the anti-fake news law was "long overdue."
The law "was a huge threat that would have devastated press freedom in Malaysia if it had ever been implemented," Phil Robertson, a deputy Asia director at the rights watchdog, said in a statement Wednesday.
Muslim-majority Malaysia is among Southeast Asian nations that are expanding existing regulations by invoking the proliferation of fake news online to introduce stricter laws that, critics say, could potentially stifle free speech.
Singapore's sweeping Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Bill came into force on Wednesday last week, while lawmakers in Indonesia and the Philippines are also preparing legislation to counter fake news.
Under Singapore's new law, it is now illegal to spread "false statements of fact" under circumstances in which that information is deemed "prejudicial" to state's security, public safety and public tranquility, among numerous other topics.

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The last edition of Utusan Malaysia can be seen at the newspaper's newsroom after employees received notice from the company that it would cease publications, Oct. 9, 2019. [S. Mahfuz/BenarNews]

'Utusan will live on'
Also on Wednesday, Utusan Malaysia, the oldest Malay newspaper with close ties to the United Malays National Organization (UMNO) party, announced an operational shutdown due to its incapability to shoulder debts.
In a memo seen by BenarNews and distributed to staff members, the newspaper confirmed that it would officially cease operations Wednesday. But in an interview with a business news website, Utusan executive chairman Abdul Aziz Sheikh Fadzir said the paper "will live on."
"We are liquidating the holding company but the ownership of the printing licenses [has] been acquired by Aurora Mulia and they will relaunch publications in the near future," theedgemarkets.com quoted Abdul Aziz as saying.
Not much is publicly known about the company Aurora Mulia Sdn Bhd. Local newspapers said it was linked to Malaysian businessman Syed Mokhtar Al-Bukhary, a close ally of Mahathir.
Utusan Malaysia was first published in the Arabic-derived Jawi language in Singapore in 1939. It switched to Roman letters in 1967.
The newspaper – founded by Yusof Ishak, who later became the first president of Singapore, and Abdul Rahim Kajai, an icon of Malay journalism – became one of the largest-selling newspapers in Malaysia, with circulation peaking at 350,000 copies a day in the 1990s.
In 2004, circulation had declined to 250,000 and further down to 144,438 copies in the first half of 2016, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations.
In August, The Edge newspaper reported that Utusan Malaysia was facing an uphill battle to pay its liabilities of 139.19 million ringgit (U.S. $33.1 million) as of June 30.
Abdul Aziz, in his memo on Wednesday, said the company "went downhill" after the May elections, adding that the company's management had agreed to close down operations during a board meeting on Monday.
"This was a necessary step as the board is of the opinion that the company is no longer solvent to continue operations," he said. "Therefore the company will cease operations on Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2019."


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BENARNEWS- Police in Malaysia announced the arrests Thursday of seven people with alleged links to Sri Lanka's defunct Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebel organization, including two Malaysian state assemblymen.
Ayob Khan Mydin Pitchay, Malaysia's police counter-terrorism chief, did not name the politicians from Malacca and Negeri Sembilan states, but he described their actions and suspected ties to the LTTE, or Tamil Tigers.
The rebels, with financial support from the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora, fought a 26-year-long separatist war with the Sri Lankan government, until the military defeated them in May 2009 and killed their top commander, Velupillai Prabhakaran.
"The two elected state assemblyman from Malacca and Negeri Sembilan had delivered speeches supporting the LTTE and distributed items related to the group during an event to remember dead LTTE fighters, held in Malacca in November 2018," Ayob said.
One of the other five suspects was plotting an attack on the Sri Lankan High Commission in Kuala Lumpur, according to Ayob.
A leader of the Democratic Action Party (DAP) identified the politicians. Lim Guan Eng, the party's secretary-general who is also Malaysia's finance minister, stated that their involvement in DAP showed no signs that the two had departed from its policy of moderation, non-violence and peaceful resolution of conflicts.
"The arrests were shocking and I have expressed to the authorities that the party stands firmly behind our two state legislators, Malacca exco member and Gadek assemblyman G. Saminathan and Seremban Jaya assemblyman P. Gunasekaran," said Lim Guan Eng, DAP secretary-general.
DAP is a member of Malaysia's ruling Pakatan Harapan coalition.
"I was just briefed that both of them will be subject to investigation under SOSMA [the Security Offenses (Special Measures) Act] which allows for 28 days of detention. The police promised a speedy investigation to allow for the submission of their investigation papers to the Attorney General's Chambers and to allow our two DAP leaders to be released early," Lim said.
Another DAP politician questioned the arrests and pointed out that LTTE had not existed for years. Charles Santiago, an MP from Klang, told reporters that the organization disbanded after its leaders were killed.
Other suspects
In addition to the two politicians, police on Thursday arrested an insurance agent who allegedly planned to attack Colombo's embassy in Kuala Lumpur, according to Ayob. He added that officers carried out raids in the states of Selangor, Negeri Sembilan, Malacca, Perak, Kedah, and the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur.
"A lengthy investigation into the suspects has been carried out since November 2018 and we collected concrete evidence to arrest them," Ayob told reporters at the federal police headquarters in Kuala Lumpur on Thursday evening.
He said the insurance agent planned the attack with another suspect who was not captured, adding that police were expecting to make additional arrests.
The four other suspects in custody possessed reading materials and other items related to the Tamil Tigers, and two had been convicted of attacking Sri Lanka's High Commissioner to Malaysia in 2016.
"Individuals who are involved in terrorist activities, we will definitely bring them to book. It doesn't matter who they are, what party they are from, their religious belief, racial background, or where they are from," Ayob said.
Founded in May 1976 by Prabhakaran, LTTE's mission was to establish a separate nation of Eeelam from the northern and eastern regions of Sri Lanka where Tamils form an ethnic majority. At the height of their power, the Tigers possessed a well-developed militia and carried out many high-profile bomb attacks, including assassinations of politicians, including Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991 and Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranasinghe Premadasa in 1993.
Apart from Sri Lanka, the United States, Britain and Canada – where large expatriate Sri Lankan Tamil communities are concentrated – are among countries that have designated the LTTE as a terror group.
Terrorism analyst Mohd Mizan Aslam, a researcher at the Malaysia Perlis University, said the threat should not be taken lightly, despite the death of Prabhakaran on the battlefield 10 years ago.
Malaysia was one of the countries in an international LTTE network and its ideology had been "spreading quickly," Aslam told BenarNews.
Hadi Azmi in Kuala Lumpur contributed to this report.


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BENARNEWS- A program to develop human capital and reduce Malaysia's reliance on low-skilled foreign workers as the country shifts toward a digital economy is part of a $71 billion spending plan for next year that the government unveiled Friday.
The second budget produced by the ruling Pakatan Harapan coalition since it was elected last year includes the Malaysians@Work initiative, which proposes to ease the dependency on foreign migrants by creating better job opportunities for Malaysian youths and women.
As he presented the proposed budget to parliament on Friday, Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng said incentives provided through the initiative were expected to help jobless Malaysians become self-reliant workers who could contribute to the labor market.
"The government anticipates that the Malaysians@Work initiative will cost 6.5 billion ringgit ($1.55 billion) over five years and create an additional 350,000 jobs for Malaysians and reduce dependency on foreign workers by more than 130,000," he said.
Nearly 2 million foreign workers were registered under the Temporary Visiting Work Permit as of Aug. 31, including many from Bangladesh and Indonesia, according to media reports. A year earlier, the Singapore-based ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute reported that the number could be as high as 3.85 million by taking into account those working in Malaysia illegally.
In addition to improving the work environment, Guan Eng said the government was looking to spearhead a digital transformation of the economy through the development of the 5G mobile network, smart automation and training for "micro-digital entrepreneurs and technologists."
The budget earmarks 10 million ringgit ($2.38 million) to leverage e-Marketplaces and social media platforms. Guan Eng discussed previous successes.
"One hundred of these micro-digital entrepreneurs, a majority of whom are women and youth, were able to generate 23 million ringgit ($5.5 million) in revenues over just six months, unleashing life-changing experiences," he said.
In his speech to parliament, the finance minister said the government expected the 2020 spending plan to show a fiscal deficit of 3.2 percent as expenditures surpass revenues, compared with a 3.4 percent deficit in the 314.5 billion ringgit ($75.1 billion) budget for 2019.
When taking control of Malaysia's government in May 2018, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad inherited a massive debt from the Barisan Nasional coalition. The ousted ruling bloc was led by former Prime Minister Najib Razak, who is facing trials tied to the alleged theft of billions of dollars from 1MDB, a state development fund.
"Despite the burden of servicing the nearly 1.1 trillion ringgit ($262.7 billion) of debt and liabilities inherited from the previous administration, this government remains committed to gradual fiscal consolidation," Guan Eng said in his budget address.
Meanwhile, the government expects to save 18.8 billion ringgit ($4.49 billion) in its operating expenditures, setting spending at 241 billion ringgit ($57.57 billion) compared to 259.8 billion ringgit ($62 billion) this year.
The government is to increase the tax rate for those earning more than 2 million ringgit ($477,748), to 30 percent from 28 percent, while it has no plans to reintroduce the Goods and Services Tax (GST), according to Reuters news service. Shortly after taking office, Mahathir abolished the GST established under Najib's government.
Parliament is expected to begin debate before approving the budget during its next session, which ends Nov. 28.

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Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng presents the 2020 budget to Parliament in Kuala Lumpur, Oct. 11, 2019. [S. Mahfuz/BenarNews]

Security spending
While the overall budget shows a 5.5 percent cut from 2019, the government will increase defense and public sector security spending by 3 billion ringgit ($716.7 million).
"The key focus going forward will be to enhance defense readiness, such as by improving the armed forces' mobility," Lim said. "Enhanced readiness includes meeting the changing nature of threats, such as having Fast Interceptor crafts for safeguarding the waters of Sabah."
Aside from the overlapping territorial claims in the South China Sea among Malaysia, China and other Asian countries, Sabah is known as being susceptible to militant activities from the Mindanao region in the neighboring southern Philippines because of a porous maritime border between the two areas. Tourists and fishermen have been subject to kidnappings blamed on members of the Philippine-based militant group Abu Sayyaf.
Lai Yew Meng, a regional security analyst at the Universiti Malaysia Sabah, said the budget increase in the face of relatively subdued economic and fiscal conditions suggests the importance placed in strengthening national security.
"Whether or not the amount is adequate may not be as salient as the fact that this increase at a time of economic uncertainties, demonstrates the government's earnest effort to ensure that our national security is not compromised," Lai said.
Aminah Farid in Kuala Lumpur and Zam Yusa in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia, contributed to this report.
This story was updated to correct the spelling of Lai Yew Meng's name. 


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BENARNEWS- Malaysia's 2020 Budget Includes Program to Reduce Reliance on Foreign Workers



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BENARNEWS- Almost three out of four Muslim women in Malaysia believe that Muslim men have the right to more than one wife, a non-governmental organization found in a recent survey released in Kuala Lumpur.
The nonprofit group Sisters in Islam, in its nationwide survey of 675 women, also learned that more than 21 percent of Muslim women believe that a husband has the right to beat his wife under several circumstances, including refusal to have sexual intercourse.
"An overwhelming 70 percent of the respondents accept that a husband has the right to practice polygamy if he can treat all the wives fairly," the group said. "However, only 32 percent among them would allow their husbands to take another wife."
Muslim women's uncompromising duty to obey their husbands "has led many situations where wives have not taken into consideration harm or injustices that may be committed unto them," the group said in a report that also carried the survey.
"Women have said they are reluctant to report domestic violence, including marital rape, because this would be a betrayal of the husband, and the family may regard the wife as having been disobedient with the husband," Sisters in Islam said.
Women's Aid Organization, a Malaysian NGO that provides free shelter and counseling for abused women, said it had recorded 5,513 cases of domestic violence in the country last year, compared to 3,468 cases in 2000.
But Sisters in Islam said new laws, including the country's Domestic Violence Act passed in 1995, have led 94 percent of the survey respondents to believe they could report mental or physical abuse against them.
"However, the figure drops significantly to 69 percent where there is sexual violence or where the husband forces sexual relations without the consent of the wife," the group said.
"Worryingly, 21 percent of respondents believe that a husband has a right to beat his wife," it said.
The Malaysian penal code against domestic violence provides stiff penalties, including up to 20 years in prison and whipping for rape convictions.
"Muslim women have been so thoroughly indoctrinated to obey that it takes a mufti to issue a declaration that women who have been assaulted or violated by their husbands are allowed to leave their homes," the group posted on Twitter after releasing the report.
Sisters in Islam commissioned Ipsos, a Paris-based global research and consulting firm, to conduct the yearlong survey that began in 2018. The participants were between the ages of 18 and 55.
In its report titled "Perceptions and Realities: The Public and Personal Rights of Muslim Women in Malaysia," Sisters in Islam underscored that domestic violence "goes directly against the principles of the Quran and is in complete contradiction to the practice of Prophet Muhammad who never hit his wife under any circumstances."
The survey respondents agreed that leaving the house without the husband's consent or refusal to open the door would be among the instances that would justify being beaten, Sisters in Islam said.
"They believe that these are acts of disobedience by the wife, and therefore the husband is permitted to strike her," the group said.
Marina Mahathir, a member of Sisters in Islam and daughter of Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, told the South China Morning Post that policymakers should read the survey.
"There is a disconnect between what Muslim women expect and what actually happens in real life to them," she said. "The disconnect is further pronounced because people have come to think that this is the way things should be."


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BENARNEWS- Malaysian warships are smaller than Chinese Coast Guard vessels present off Sarawak, the country's top diplomat said Thursday, underlining the Southeast Asian nation's need to upgrade its naval capability amid competition among great powers in the South China Sea.
Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah made the statement during a question-and-answer session in parliament a day after the U.S. Navy sailed a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier off the coast of Malaysia.
"We can make maps, we can demand for certain territory, but to answer the question, we need to enhance our assets to allow us to protect our coasts especially in facing the super powers in the South China Sea," Saifuddin said referring to China and the United States.
He said Malaysia's position on the South China Sea is clear and consistent.
"To ensure regional peace and stability, Malaysia is committed to ensure everyone respects international law, resolves any dispute and avoids the use of force or threats of violence," Saifuddin said, according to a transcript of the session.
Moving forward, the government is monitoring for developments that could cause tension between the superpowers, he said.
China claims most of the South China Sea and has built military outposts on small islands and atolls, angering other countries with overlapping claims to the waters, including Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei, Vietnam and Taiwan.
Malaysia, along with other members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), have asked China and the U.S. to refrain from increasing military presence in the region.
But the United States has been sending warships and conducting training exercises with longtime military allies in the region, such as Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia.
"Last year, Chinese and American warships in international waters got as close as 50 kilometers (31 miles). To a big warship, a distance below 50 kilometers is not a small matter," Saifuddin said.
On Wednesday, Bloomberg quoted U.S. Navy Rear Adm, George Wikoff as saying he had been impressed with the professionalism of China's navy. He made the statement aboard the USS Ronald Reagan, which was headed for Singapore as part of what Washington describes as freedom of navigation exercises.
"They remain respectful in accordance with what we anticipate a professional would do," Wikoff told the news service, referring to China. "We respond or initiate in kind when we believe there is a situation."
In August, the state-run news service Bernama also quoted Saifuddin as saying that ASEAN has expressed concern over rising tensions in the South China Sea, adding that the 10-nation regional bloc had stressed the importance of non-militarization.
"We should lessen the presence of warships in the disputed waters to ensure peace and stability, safety and freedom of navigation in the South China Sea," he said at the time. "It is a free passage but when there are too many, we are worried."
Bersama Lima
Saifuddin's statement on Thursday came on the same day the Five Power Defense Arrangements (FPDA) finished its annual 17-day training Exercise Bersama Lima in Singapore. The five powers – Malaysia, Australia, Britain, New Zealand and Singapore – sent seven ships, 48 aircraft, one submarine, five ground-based air defense units and five army platoons to participate in land, sea and air training.
The training began in 1971 and alternates annually between Malaysia and Singapore.
During closing ceremonies, Singapore Lt. Gen. Melvyn Ong emphasized the importance of FPDA exercises in enhancing mutual trust and cooperation.
"This ensures that the FPDA continues to be relevant. And it must be so, in enhancing peace and security in the region," he said.


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BENARNEWS- An independent U.S. commission has accused Malaysia of "religious freedom violations," citing the abduction of Pastor Raymond Koh and mysterious disappearances of another prominent religious figure and his wife, as well as a social activist.
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) extensively mentioned Koh's disappearance in its new report released Thursday, more than six months after placing Malaysia under its Tier 2 designation for the next most-serious level of religious freedom violations.
USCIRF's report also came months after Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad told reporters he would open a new probe into the disappearances of Koh and social activist Amri Che Mat. His announcement followed a public inquiry that concluded the duo probably were abducted by state agents, including those linked to the national police's special branch.
"The aforementioned cases are each disturbing in their own right, but together they are emblematic of a wider disregard for fundamental human rights in Malaysia," USCIRF said referring to Koh and Amri.
In its 234-page report released on April 29, USCIRF placed Malaysia among 12 countries on Tier 2, including Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Cuba, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Laos, and Turkey.
The commission, which was created by Congress 20 years ago, defines Tier 2 as "nations in which the violations engaged in or tolerated by the government." It noted that Malaysia has been under Tier 2 since 2014 "for engaging in or tolerating religious freedom violations."
"Pervasive, institutionalized barriers remain in place that prevent Malaysians from practicing their faith or nonbelief in accordance with their conscience," it said.
Malaysia's National Human Rights Commission (Suhakam), in announcing the conclusion of its fact-finding mission in April, said Koh and Amri were abducted in similar ways by men wearing black face masks. Their abductions were swift and, in Koh's abduction, was captured on surveillance cameras.
But the inquiry could not determine what happened to the two men after they were last seen.
Koh was snatched in broad daylight from a road in the suburbs of Kuala Lumpur on Feb. 13, 2017, when men in black SUVs and motorcycles forced his car to stop.
Amri, who is from Perlis, was last seen on Nov 24, 2016. His disappearance may have been religiously motivated based on allegations that he was spreading Shia Muslim teachings, according to local media reports.
Several rights groups had said Koh might have been targeted because religious authorities believed that he was spreading Christianity to Muslims. Evangelizing Muslims is a crime in Malaysia, where 61 percent of the country's 33 million people are Muslim and about 20 percent are Buddhist.
USCIRF said "a number of prominent Malaysian religious minority leaders have mysteriously disappeared in recent years," including Pastor Joshua Hilmy and his wife, Ruth. Hilmy converted to Christianity from Islam, while Ruth is an Indonesian and Christian from birth, it said.
In April, Koh's wife, Susanna, said she would seek information from the police's Special Branch or she would consider legal action, according to local reports.
Meanwhile, a nonprofit organization has launched an online campaign urging Christians worldwide to sign a petition demanding that the Malaysian government explain his disappearance. The petition has more than 29,800 signatures.
In its new report, USCIRF said that while the Malaysian constitution makes no distinction between Sunni and Shia Islam, in practice, Shia Muslims experience discrimination.
"Malaysian authorities surveil and harass Shia Muslims, ban literature that promotes non-Sunni Islamic beliefs, prohibit public worship or assembly, and threaten arrests for observing Shia Muslim holidays," it said.
USCIRF's annual reports are different from the U.S. State Department's annual international religious freedom report, which covers every nation in the world other than the United States. The commission documents 30 countries that have the most significant religious freedom violations and submits its annual report to the White House, the State Department, and Congress.
For 2019, the USCIRF listed 16 countries, including China and Burma, on Tier 1, alleging that such nations were suppressing religious freedom and permitting persecution.
The commission, in its special report on Malaysia, made several recommendations, including for the U.S. government to urge the Malaysian government to remove the religion field from its national ID cards and allow for marriage between Muslims and non-Muslims without conversion.
It also urged Washington to pressure the Malaysian government to acknowledge all peaceful religious activity as legitimate and end the arrest and detention of religious minorities.


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BENARNEWS- Malaysia stopped distributing a political activist's comic book to schools nationwide after critics slammed its pro-China propaganda content lauding Beijing's One Belt, One Road initiative.
The comic book explained the "Chinese Dream" of being a socialist state, an ancient Oriental civilization, a major developing country and a rising emerging nation. One Belt, One Road (OBOR) is the manifestation of the dream, according to book author Hew Kuan Yua.
On Monday, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said it is not Malaysia's role to promote Beijing's ideologies.
"I believe China will be a great influence in the future," he said, "but for the moment it is not for us to promote China's ideas and Chinese ideologies, but to find out how we can benefit from them."
"As much as we did not like the Western influence in our set of beliefs and schools, we do not want any other country to have undue influence on our young people," Mahathir said during question-and-answer session at an Institute of Strategic and International Studies conference in Kuala Lumpur.
OBOR is Beijing's massive infrastructure initiative that stretches to 70 countries. It aims to become a 21st-century Silk Road by connecting the countries through networks of railways, bridges and ports, linking China with Africa, Europe and Southeast Asia.
Hew, the chief executive of the Malaysia-China Business Council who is nicknamed "Superman Hew," made a series of Facebook postings over the weekend to say the comic improved bilateral relations with Beijing.
He posted a photo showing Mahathir and Chinese President Xi Jinping flipping through the comic book during an April meeting in China.
"This is a photo that will be interpreted in different ways," Hew said in one of his postings. Hew is a former member of ruling coalition member Democratic Action Party (DAP).
"UMNO and PH will eventually reach a dead-end while my work has already helped in improving relations between Malaysia and China," he said referring to the opposition United Malays National Organization and Mahathir's ruling Pakatan Harapan coalition.
In response, the Prime Minister's Office issued a statement late Friday explaining the photo and denying that it was a gift from Mahathir to Xi, saying it had not been vetted properly before it ended up in their hands.
"The prime minister was never involved in the book's publication nor was aware of its content," the statement said. "He also never gave consent for his likeness to be used for whatever purpose nor gave permission for the books to be distributed at schools."
The education ministry issued its own statement that it never approved distribution of the 164-page comic book.
The Malaysian Islamic Youth Movement issued a statement condemning the comic's depiction of Muslims as terrorists through a page depicting an image of Osama bin Laden and a fighter brandishing a rocket-propelled grenade launcher with a flag bearing the letters "IS."
"This can be seen through the contents of the comic which, among others, spread the propaganda that those who support the Uyghurs against the Chinese government's oppression are radicals," youth movement secretary-general Muhammad Faisal Abdul Aziz told BenarNews.
In his own Facebook posting, former Prime Minister Najib Razak questioned why DAP's propaganda was being freely distributed at schools.
"What message are they trying to send?" Najib said.
Meanwhile, Inspector General of Police Abdul Hamid Bador said police took a statement from the comic book artist and expect to question two individuals related to its publication. He said their testimony would be necessary.
"At the moment, we are not able to determine what offense has been committed. However, once we have statements from the other two individuals, police will forward investigation papers to the attorney general's office for further action," he said.
"Abominable" pulled from cinemas
On Monday, meanwhile, officials said the animated motion picture "Abominable" by Dreamworks Studio will not be screened in Malaysian cinemas following backlash over a depiction of a map of Southeast Asia with China's infamous "nine-dash line" superimposed over the contested waters of the South China Sea.
Film Censorship Board chairman Zamberi Aziz told BenarNews the board had allowed the movie company to remove the offending scene.
The film's distributor, United International Pictures, in a statement to Reuters news agency, said it was not willing to abide by the Malaysian censor board's requirement and chose not to screen the film in the country.
The movie has been pulled from cinemas in Vietnam and the Philippines as well. All three countries have territorial claims to the South China Sea while China claims nearly all of it as its own.
Noah Lee in Kuala Lumpur contributed to this report.


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BENARNEWS- Malaysia will spend 5.1 billion ringgit (U.S. $1.21 billion) to service the debt of scandal-ridden state fund 1MDB and its former subsidiary SRC International, in 2019 and 2020, its finance minister said Monday, ahead of a landmark court ruling on the case.
Minister Lim Guan Eng said that the government paid 210.66 million ringgit ($50.3 million) last week to cover interest due on a 2012 bond issued by a subsidiary of 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), while two other payments are due to be made next month.
About 219.2 million ringgit ($52.3 million) is to be paid on Nov. 11 and 143.75 million ringgit ($34.3 million) on Nov. 29 to cover other bonds, he said.
One report said 1MDB's debt and liabilities – including interest – currently stands at 51 billion ringgit ($12.2 billion).
"The government is committed to pay up all loan obligation it inherited from the previous administration," Lim said, referring to the scandal-tainted Prime Minister Najib Razak's government which lost power in the country's general election in 2018.
He said funds retrieved from recovered assets of 1MDB are being used to make the payments, adding that money could have been used to benefit Malaysian citizens.
Lim discussed the shortfalls on the same day Najib was in High Court listening to prosecutors discuss the case they built against him on seven charges related to the alleged illegal diversion of 42 million ringgit ($9.9 million) in funds from SRC International.
Prosecutor V. Sithambaram told the court that Najib knew the funds had been deposited to his personal account, according to state-run Bernama news agency.
"The submission claiming ignorance of the funds credited and checks issued out of the accused's accounts by the defense cannot be accepted as credible especially since he was the then finance minister of Malaysia managing the finances of this entire country," the prosecutor said in ending his case against Najib.
Najib's defense team will present the case on Wednesday for dismissing the charges against him.
High Court Judge Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali has set Nov. 11 as the date he will determine if the prosecution has made its case against Najib and if the defense must continue. Trial dates in December have been scheduled, if necessary.
Najib is standing trial at the same time on 25 charges of abuse of power and money laundering connected with 2.3 billion ringgit (U.S. $681 million) that went missing from 1MDB.
'Kleptocracy'
In addition, the former prime minister is expected to face more trials on a total of 42 charges related to 1MDB's loss of billions of dollars. The U.S. Justice Department, which has also filed criminal cases, called it the "worst kleptocracy scandal in recent times."
Prosecutors and investigators in Malaysia, the United States and other countries have alleged that Najib, along with family members and associates, used 1MDB to line their pockets with cash and luxury items. Among those facing charges for their alleged roles are Najib's wife, Rosmah Mansor, and fugitive financier Low Taek Jho (better known as Jho Low).
Najib founded 1MDB in 2009 to spur economic development in Malaysia.
Lim said Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who succeeded Najib after his Pakatan Harapan coalition pulled off an election upset in May 2018, called it a miracle when Malaysia did not go bankrupt because of 1MDB.
"Mahathir said that one of the biggest challenges after overthrowing the kleptocratic regime was to clean up the damage left behind and to rebuild the country as it required much effort and financial stability," Lim said.


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BENARNEWS- Yazid Sufaat, the only Malaysian directly involved in the 9/11 terror attacks against the United States, is set to be released from prison next month, but police will continue to monitor him, the nation's police chief says.
The 55-year-old convicted terrorist from Johor has finished his two-year sentence under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) and must be released, said Abdul Hamid Bador, inspector general of police.
"This is part and parcel of the law process. He had served his sentence and when the time comes, he will be released," Abdul Hamid told reporters. "We cannot take away his liberty. We will continue to engage with him, we will monitor him and he will still go to rehab."
Abdul Hamid described the former army captain as a tough prisoner who underwent rehabilitation while incarcerated at the Simpang Renggam prison in Johor state since 2017.
"He was tough but the scenario is different when you are outside. We understand concerns but we cannot arrest him based on other people's perception," Abdul Hamid said. "My men will be on alert so that no unwanted incident would occur."
Yazid, a U.S. trained bio-chemist, was detained under the now-defunct Internal Security Act (ISA) in December 2001 for his alleged involvement with bin Laden's al-Qaeda. He was released in 2008 but re-arrested five years later and again in 2017 after a brief release.
Yazid was arrested in 2013 under SOSMA [the Security Offenses (Special Measures) Act] and sentenced to four years for recruiting new members for the Islamic State.
Following his release, Yazid was detained in December 2017 after authorities discovered that he had been recruiting fellow inmates for al-Qaeda while in jail. He is finishing up his two-year sentence and is to be released, according to officials.
Educated in the United States
A bio-chemistry graduate from the University of Sacramento in California, Yazid joined Jemaah Islamiyah terror group shortly after its founding in 1993. He was tasked with developing anthrax as a bio-terror weapon for al-Qaeda, investigators said.
In January 2000 key al-Qaeda members met at Yazid's home in Kuala Lumpur to discuss terror plans, according to reports. He also allegedly provided lodging to two Sept. 11 hijackers, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi.
Yazid was flown to Kandahar, Afghanistan, in 2001 under the command of Ayman al-Zawahiri to spend several months attempting to cultivate anthrax in a laboratory he helped set up near the Kandahar airport, according to the 9/11 commission report.
He was in Afghanistan during the Sept. 11 attack and later fled through Pakistan to Malaysia where he was caught by authorities and jailed under ISA at the Kamunting Camp prison, which housed convicted terrorists and political detainees.
Home Minister Muhyiddin Yassin told reporters the government would wait for the Prevention of Terrorism Board to decide Yazid's fate.
Muhyiddin said the board would meet next month to examine details of Yazid's detention.
"I have not come to the final decision, I just reviewed the matter and the two-year detention under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) is likely to end soon," Muhyiddin said, according to state news agency Bernama.
"Regardless, there is a procedure before the final decision is made through a single board where it will look at circumstances during the detention period and how he (Yazid) has behaved, whether he has improved or not," he said. "This will be looked at and then the decision will be made."


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