The Higher Education Ministry has stressed that, despite allegations of links between terrorist organisation Jemaah Islamiah and local university students, it has yet to reach any conclusion on the matter.

“We were only there to listen. We have not made any conclusion,” said minister Mohamed Khaled Nordin, referring to the high-level briefing by the police top brass on Monday, which saw a senior official from Institut Latihan Islam Malaysia (Ilim) - run by the government’s religious agency Jakim - linking terrorism to Wahhabism, the puritanical Islamic school of thought.

uum discipline action against student 260209 mohamed khaled nordin “These allegations were not made by the ministry or anyone from public universities, so I will not comment on it,” said Khaled ( right ) at a press conference after launching an entrepreneurship seminar at a hotel in Kuala Lumpur this afternoon.

However, he was mum when asked if it was true that the allegations were made.

“I think it is better if that is answered by the police,” he said.

When asked if there was a “watch list” of staff and students given out to senior university administrators who had attended the briefing, as highlighted by an English daily on Wednesday, he said: “Nobody brought back anything.”

“But what we all can agree on is that we are not dismissing it as a threat and we still have to be vigilant to help the government in this security aspect,” he said.

In the briefing on the JI threat in local universities, which Khaled himself chaired, it is understood that Ilim deputy director Zamihan Mat Zain had claimed that JI originated from Wahhabism.

Wahhabism - a conservative and literalist school of Islamic thought originating in the Arabian peninsula in the 18th century - is not banned in Malaysia.

However, it is “not encouraged” as it advocates purging Islamic practices that did not exist during the time of Prophet Muhammad from Malaysia's mainly Shafii school.

Denials from Zamihan

Zamihan had accused several local religious personalities as having Wahhabi leanings, including PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang, former Perlis mufti Mohd Asri Zainul Abidin, former Perlis MB Shahidan Kassim and current Perlis mufti Juanda Jaya.

While the four have denied his allegations, some with threats to sue Zamihan, he has defended his briefing and claimed that he only named Mohd Asri in his briefing.

However, several sources who had attended the briefing had confirmed with Malaysiakini that Zamihan had indeed identified them.

“Even if he did not verbalise it, he definitely mentioned them in his slide presentation,” said one of the sources.

It is also understood that Zamihan was only one of the two speakers, the other one being Federal Police Special Operation Force (Operations/Terrorism) special task force head Ayob Khan Mydin Pitchay.

Also present at the briefing, which was held at a hotel in Sepang, was deputy inspector-general of police Ismail Omar.

The alert on JI heightened when inspector-general of police Musa Hassan announced that the 10 alleged foreign militants, who have been arrested and deported early this year, had also been on a recruitment drive for impressionable university students.

It was also reported that the group had plotted to blow up Kek Lok Si Temple in Penang and the Sri Subramaniar Swamy Devasthanam temple at Batu Caves.