Special Branch team found human bones 'scattered' at jungle camps

WANG KELIAN RCI | Aside from human trafficking camps and mass graves, police also found human skeletal remains deep in the jungles of Wang Kelian, near the Thai border, in 2015.

Testifying before the Wang Kelian Royal Commission of Inquiry today, former Special Branch officer Jamaluddin Shah Mohd Jawan said his team hiked up Bukit Wang Burma in Wang Kelian on Aug 15, 2015, and stumbled upon six exposed human skeletons at an abandoned jungle camp.

“The skeletons were in the camps, not in the graves. The camps were made of wood and covered with canvas. That’s where the skeletons were.

“We found six skeletons on top of a pelanta (platform),” he said.

Jamaluddin said the bones had been found in a "berselerak (scattered)" manner.

During the operation, police had also found 20 graves, which they later dug up and uncovered 20 bodies.

Photographs of the skeletons and graves were produced before the RCI panel, but not shown on the television screens at the public gallery.

The mission was a follow-up to an earlier operation in January that year, in which a separate police team had discovered human trafficking camps and graves at a different part of Bukit Wang Burma.

According to Jamaluddin, this second camp was located on the peak of Gunung Perlis, and was a mere 30m to 50m from a stone that served as a border marker between Malaysia and Thailand, or an hour’s walk up the hill from the first site.

On Aug 16, a day after the operation, he made a police report detailing what they found to allow his superiors to take further action. 

Aside from the trips in January and August, Jamaluddin said the police had made a trip up Bukit Genting Perah in March that year and discovered more human trafficking camps there.

From that mission, they arrested two Thai nationals along with three Myanmar nationals and learned of another route used by “syndicates” to transport undocumented migrants into the country.

Jamaluddin also claimed to have sent “more than 10" reports on human trafficking syndicates operating along the border to his superiors at the time.

The Home Ministry set up the RCI back in January and appointed former chief justice Ariffin Zakaria to chair it.

Ariffin is assisted by former inspector-general of police Norian Mai along with five commissioners - former ambassador to Thailand Nazirah Hussin; former public accounts committee deputy chairperson Tan Seng Giaw; former chief prosecutor Noorbahri Baharuddin; former Suhakam chairperson Razali Ismail; former head of research at the Attorney-General’s Chambers Junaidah Abdul Rahman.

The inquiry has been given six months till September this year to prepare a report.

The public hearing will resume tomorrow. 

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