With announcement that there is no al Qaeda and KMM link, all 19 alleged KMM members should be released from ISA or charged in open court
(Petaling Jaya, Monday): Deputy Home Minister Datuk Zainal Abdin Zain said yesterday that no link has been established between the al Qaeda network of Osama bin Laden and the Kumpulan Militant Malaysia (KMM). (The Sun)
DAP calls on the government to release all the 19 alleged KMM members detained under the Internal Security Act and charge them in open court for any crime committed under the law of the land to provide to prove their innocence.
Last week, the Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi told Parliament that a large number of KMM members were found to be Opposition supporters operating in its Terengganu and Kelantan networks and that KMM was also active in Perak, Johor, Kedah and Selangor.
He alleged that KMM was an underground movement established on Oct 12, 1995, by Zainon Ismail, a former mujahidin in Afghanistan and that it was taken over in early 1999 by Nik Adli Nik Abdul Aziz, the son of the Kelantan Mentri Besar, Nik Aziz Nik Mat.
Despite controlled release in the mass media of dribs and drabs of information, whose authenticity is unverified and untested, the fact is that the government has failed to offer any concrete evidence in the past two months to satisfy Malaysians of the actual existence of the KMM.
When the Inspector-General of Police, Tan Sri Norian Mai first announced on 3rd August 2001 the arrest of eight persons under the ISA for being members of a local militant religious group with international terrorist links, he identified KMM as Kumpulan Mujahideen Malaysia - on the ground that "they had previously undergone military training with the Mujahideen in Afghanistan or have actually fought in the jihad wars there".
But ten days after Norian Mai's first "revelation" about the Kumpulan Mujaheedin Malaysia, the term suddenly disappeared from official usage, with KMM undergoing an unannounced change of identity to become "Kumpulan Militant
Malaysia"!
What was the reason for this sudden change of identity and the charade of police and government pretence that this change of identity of the KMM had never taken place?
Although the United States has still to produce "hard evidence" to link Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda network with the heinous terrorist mass murders in New York and Washington on September 11 to the satisfaction of the world community - apart from a few governments whose leaders claim satisfied with such evidence - at least the actual existence of the al Qaeda network as an international terrorist organisation has been established beyond a shadow of doubt.
But this is not yet the case with the KMM as there is no concrete evidence whatsoever on the existence of the KMM. Is it beyond the capability of the police to produce concret evidence to prove the existence of KMM - and is this why a White Paper on KMM has proved to be abortive to date?
Abdullah should be frank with Malaysians and the world and furnish the concrete evidence to prove the existence of the KMM in Malaysia as a militant organisation for jihad wars!