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Speaker slammed for rejecting motion on Sabah abduction incident

Graft body made 847 arrests since 2009 – Bernama

Sabah DAP lawmakers today slammed Dewan Rakyat Speaker Tan Sri Pandikar Amin Mulia for not taking the issue of security in Sabah seriously following the murder-cum-abduction of a Taiwanese couple in Pom Pom island last week.

Kota Kinabalu MP Jimmy Wong and Sandakan MP Wong Tien Fatt were furious after Pandikar Amin rejected their emergency motion to debate the incident in Parliament.

At the Parliament lobby later, the duo said they took offence to Pandikar Amin's justification for rejecting the motion.

The Speaker had said "the issue was under investigation so there is no urgency to debate the issue".

"I don't know how they determine the urgency of issues," said Tien Fatt.

"Someone was killed and his wife kidnapped, the Taiwanese government has issued an orange alert to its citizens who want to travel to Sabah and the incident has gained international attention. But it is still not urgent for them?"

He said that the incident had only happened last week so the urgency of the matter still existed, adding that Sabahans were tired with the authorities for shifting responsibility over the incident.

"Even with Eastern Sabah Security Command (Esscom), which was set up after the Lahad Datu intrusion, this has continued to happen. It has not guaranteed the safety and security of Sabah and its people," said Tien Fatt.

Jimmy criticised Esscom director-general Datuk Mohammad Mentek for saying that although measures have been taken to secure the coastal waters off Sabah, intrusions could still take place due to the long coastline and vast number of islands.

"We hear this same reason every time something like this happens. Every inch of the Sabah coastline is important," he said.

Both Jimmy and Tien Fatt attributed the latest incident to the illegal immigrants in Sabah, who they said "live among the locals".

"Why couldn't Esscom, the police and security forces detect these intruders? That's because they were Malaysian IC holders.

"The attack is from inside," Wong said, calling on the government to reissue ICs to Sabahans to weed out "foreigners".

Deputy Finance Minister Datuk Ahmad Maslan earlier in Parliament shrugged off the incident as "isolated", insisting that the murder-cum-abduction incident would not have an adverse effect on the nation's economy as Malaysia, being a vast country, has many other places to offer tourists.

“We have Sarawak and Peninsular Malaysia for people to visit. Kuala Lumpur and Pom Pom are far from each other and Kuala Lumpur is not affected," Maslan said.

Pom Pom is the island where Taiwanese tourist Chang An Wei was abducted by intruders while her husband Hsu Li Min, 57, was found dead with two bullets in his chest.

Malaysian police believe terrorist group Abu Sayyaf is responsible for the incident on Friday. Taiwanese daily Taipei Times quoted the Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar as saying on Saturday that the southern Philippine militant group could be behind the incident.

Khalid said the terrorists were able to slip into the resort as the Philippine army were busy in relief works in the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan. – November 19, 2013.