The Malaysian Insight

MALAYSIA has its own terrorist lists and does not need to follow other countries’, said anti-terror chief Ayob Khan Mydin Pitchay today.

The Special Branch Counterterrorism Division principal assistant director was responding to criticism hurled at Bukit Aman for continuing to view the now-defunct Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) as a threat.

Despite the US not recognising LTTE as a terror outfit, he said, there are other nations that do.

“We have to remember that we are a sovereign state with our own laws. We have our own lists.

“Every action is taken according to the standard operating procedure,” he told reporters at the International Conference on Financial Crime and Terrorism Financing 2019 in Kuala Lumpur.

Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng recently questioned police’s action against LTTE suspects, saying the group is no longer in operation and was not mentioned in a recent US report on terrorism.

The DAP secretary-general urged cops to explain the US State Department’s Country Reports on Terrorism 2018, which said Malaysia remains a “source and transit point” for terror groups like the Islamic State, despite the country having stepped up its anti-terrorism efforts.

Five DAP members, including two assemblymen, are among 12 arrested and charged recently with supporting LTTE.

All 12 are being detained under the Security Offences (Special Measures) Act 2012, which DAP has urged the government to repeal. – November 5, 2019.