‘Police officer’ was to join in negotiation with intruders

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KOTA KINABALU: The High Court here was told yesterday that an individual believed to be a police officer mentioned in an intercepted telephone conversation was to have been involved in a negotiation with the people who had intruded into Kampung Tanduo in Lahad Datu in 2013.

Supervising officer of the Bukit Aman Special Branch (SB) communication interception unit, ASP Muhammad Fauzairi Jaidin, said the 10.50 am phone call on Feb 21, 2013, between a man known as ‘Adu’, who was using a mobile number belonging to one ‘Al-Wajir Osman’, and a certain ‘Raja Muda Agimuddin’ mentioned the name of the police officer as ‘Omar Mamah’.

“This telephone conversation was in the context of a negotiation (between Malaysian authorities and the intruders). He (Omar Mamah) was said ‘to be joining the negotiation”.

“This means Omar Mamah will participate in the negotiation on behalf of the Malaysian authorities and ‘Raja’ (Raja Muda Agimuddin) on behalf of the intruders,” he said when testifying in the trial of 30 individuals allegedly linked to the intrusion.

Muhammad Fauzairi also said that the word ‘diaorang’ (them) in the intercepted communication also referred to the Malaysian authorities who would be involved in the negotiation with the so-called Sulu crown prince Agimuddin in connection with the intrusion. The SB officer told the court that his unit conducted 73 communication interceptions on 10 individuals, one of them a woman.

According to the witness, information from the interceptions was supplied to SB operations coordinating officers ASP Mohamad Hasnal Jamil and ASP Wan Kamal Rizal Wan Daud either by hand or via telephone.

In the dock are 27 Filipinos and three local residents who are facing one to several charges of being members of a terrorist group, waging war against the Yang di-Pertuan Agong, recruiting members for a terrorist group or willfully harbouring individuals they knew to be members of a terrorist group. They allegedly committed the offences between Feb 12 and April 10, 2013.

The hearing, before Justice Stephen Chung at the Sabah Prisons Department, continues today. — Bernama