Deputy PM defends border officers

Wed, 13 Feb 2002 | Source: AP

MALAYSIA: The deputy prime minister defended border officers on Tuesday against allegations that they colluded in smuggling illegal Indonesian workers into Malaysia.

Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said that it was too early to decide, however, whether the Malaysian government would issue a formal protest against the accusations, or whether enough evidence existed to investigate them.

Abdullah told reporters at a Chinese New Year celebration that the government was "very unhappy to be confronted by generalizations leading to press reports of such a nature".

The chief of Indonesia's provincial Riau assembly, Andi Anhar Chalid, has been cited in Malaysian media as saying that corruption was widespread at an entry point in southern Malaysia popular with Indonesian migrants. --AP

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