DO HEARD OF SULU INCURSION PLAN TWO WEEKS AHEAD

KOTA KINABALU (Malaysia): SABAH RCI Lahad Datu district officer (DO) Zulkifli Nasir has claimed that local police had informed him that Sulu gunmen were planning an incursion, two weeks before this took place earlier this year.

   However, Zulkilfli testified before the royal commission of inquiry (RCI) on illegal immigrants in Sabah that he was told to keep this secret.

He also said that the Sulu gunmen were targetting Lahad Datu, but that early intervention by the authorities had kept them at bay in Kg Tanduo, some 100km from Lahad Datu town.

   "Their initial target was Lahad Datu town," said Zulkifli, who has been the district officer there for the past five years.

   "It is thanks to the swift action of the police, the incident never reached Lahad Datu and ended in Kg Tanduo," he said.

   Zulkifli also noted that the state government had stopped efforts to relocate illegals living in squatter colonies in Lahad Datu post-2008.

   He said that such aggressive efforts were under way during the tenure of former chief minister Chong Kah Kiat, but has been on the decline ever since and even stopped after 2008.

   "What former CM Chong did, should have been continued. Now we have lost the momentum. So we should start again from the beginning," he noted.

   Zulkifli admitted to the commission that political interference has been one of the reasons why the district office and other authorities are not able to act aggressively in curbing illegal immigrants' colonies.

   "When we wanted to do it, we received requests from politicians to be careful in what we do," he said.

   "They asked us not do anything drastic before the 13th general election, we were requested to do it after the 13th general election instead," he added.