Malaysia enraged over arrest of two accountants in S. Sulawesi
Andi Hajramurni, The Jakarta Post, Makassar
The arrest of two Malaysian accountants here has sparked an uproar in Kuala Lumpur, with Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak protesting the way South Sulawesi provincial police treated the two.
"Our ambassadors will make approaches to get them out on bail. They are being held with hardened criminals and we are very concerned about their plight," Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak told reporters on Monday, as quoted by Agence France-Presse.
The two Malaysians were arrested on Aug. 16, while they were doing an audit for subcontractor of giant nickel miner PT International Nickel Indonesia Tbk (PT Inco). Now the two -- Choa Yao Chin, 24 and Reimala Siva Linggam, 29, who work for auditing firm KPMG, are locked up in South Sulawesi police station detention cells for visa violations, a police spokesman Sr. Comr. Djoko Subroto said on Tuesday.
According to Djoko, the two had "committed crimes" as they acquired only a tourist visa, but in fact they worked as accounting consultants with one of PT International Nickel Indonesia's subcontractors.
It was, according to investigators, the second time they had entered the country, the first between May 30 and June 28 and the second on July 28. They had planned to stay from July 28 until Aug. 24. However, before they completed their work, they were arrested on Aug. 16.
The police have questioned several witnesses since then, including employees of PT Inco and its subcontractors. Djoko said that the questioning of the suspects and several other witnesses had been completed and the case files had been sent to the South Sulawesi Prosecutor's Office. However, the court process would not commence until after the Prosecutor's Office examined the case files and handed it over to a Sulawesi court.
Separately, regional external relations director at PT Inco, Edi Suhardi, explained that the two accountants did not work for PT Inco, but for one of its subcontractors.
Just two weeks after the arrest of the two accountants, Maluku provincial police arrested and deported a Singapore-based professor and expert on terror issues, because he was traveling around Maluku without proper research documents. Rohan Kumar Gunaratna from Sri Lanka, was arrested by an antiterror police unit on Sept. 5 while he was on his way to Ambon from Seram Island. The police detained Gunaratna because he failed to show a document that allowed him to carry out research on terror cells in the conflict-ravaged province. Gunaratna was charged with violating the law on immigration and deported.
Gunaratna is a professor and the chairman of the Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies (IDSS) based in Singapore, which is known to have produced a wide range of articles and books on international politics, terror and strategic defense.