Sabah RCI: Cancel ICs, charge culprits – Radin

KOTA KINABALU - Malaysian identification cards (ICs) given to unqualified immigrants must be cancelled and those involved in indiscriminate issuance of these documents must be charged in open court, said Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS) vice president Datuk Radin Malleh.

Testifying before the Royal Commission of Inquiry on Illegal Immigrants here yesterday, Radin also proposed that the process of issuing IC be revamped to ensure no more unqualified immigrants could gain citizenship in Sabah.

He stressed that apart from trying to stop illegal immigrants from sneaking into Sabah, including by utilising the newly established Eastern Sabah Security Command (ESSCOMM), it was vital to ensure that they do not easily get ICs once they are here.

Otherwise, he said the immigrants will keep coming illegally knowing that they would be able to stay as citizens once they managed to slip through the porous security of the State borders.

“First of all these people are foreigners and not only that, they are illegal immigrants (PTI). They got the ICs without going through the proper procedures. To me they are still PTI and not citizens, and they should be sent back to their country of origin.

“We must also charge the culprits responsible for issuing the IC to them. Using Internal Security Act (ISA) is not enough, they need to be brought to open court so that we know who these people are, so others would think twice before doing the same,” he said when testifying as a witness for PBS in the inquiry yesterday.

As to the mechanism of recalling the ICs, Radin said it should be easy as there must be record somewhere on the documents issued to immigrants.

“The IC has to be revoked. I think there should be record somewhere. They (NRD) know who they give IC illegally. Just cancel it,” he said.

Asked by conducting officer Jamil Aripin what was the stand of PBS on IMM13 holders who came to Sabah since the 70s as refugees, Radin said the government may give necessary consideration to them but it must abide by the law and put the security and sovereignty of the country first.

He said the government should officially stop issuing or renewing IMM13 as the document is no longer relevant, arguing that the southern Philippines is no longer at war.

He said those who have been residing in Sabah long enough and their children that are born here could be considered for citizenship, but they must go through the proper procedures.

Earlier, Radin said PBS came to know about Malaysian ICs being allegedly being given to illegal immigrants in the 90s, where it received a list of ICs from unnamed sources claimed to have been issued unconstitutionally to foreigners.

A cross check using the list found that about 10 per cent of the names in Sabah electoral roll at the time were those with dubious ICs.

He confirmed that the party had lodged a police report on the matter and even brought the issue to the Prime Minister, calling for a RCI to be set up and have the ‘dubious’ Malaysians be stripped off their citizenship and sent back to their country of origin.

Radin said he himself had raised issues pertaining to dubious ICs in parliament through both verbal and written questions to the ministry concerned but had not received any satisfactory answer until today.

“I did submit a written question but the answer given to me was that it was not in accordance with the point of orders of the assembly. Maybe there was a cover up,” he said.

Radin believed the issuance of dubious ICs could be an organized scheme that was politically motivated to bring down the then PBS government, by recruiting illegal immigrants as new voters.

He however declined to speculate as to which political party or individuals could be behind the exercise.
He also did not rule out the problem could have simply been caused by greed or other motivation of certain individuals or syndicates looking to make quick money.

To a question, he said PBS had not conducted any investigation to verify the credibility of the information on the alleged dubious ICs it had received but he was confident of the reliability of the sources.

The conducting officers also explained to Radin that testimonies from previous witnesses indicated that efforts have been taken by the National Registration Department to screen the so-called dubious ICs.

He noted that a high ranking NRD officer had testified that there were over 113,000 old ICs considered dubious as they contained incomplete or suspicious details.

However, all applications for renewal or upgrading of the ICs involved have been subjected to a screening process conducted by a special panel, who have rejected over 60 pct of the applications received.

Radin agreed that the current government leadership had sincerity and political will to resolve the IC and illegal immigrant problems in Sabah, as proven by the setting up of the RCI.

by Murib Morpi