MALAYSIAN police have not received information yet regarding the repatriation of two Malaysians who are currently in US custody at the Guantanamo Bay Prison in Cuba.
This was confirmed by the Deputy Inspector-General of Police Datuk Seri Ayob Khan Mydin Pitchay at a press conference in Bukit Aman here today.
“We have not received any information,” he was reported as saying when asked about the matter.
Earlier, the media had reported that the government is speeding up efforts to bring home two Malaysians who are currently in detention at Guantanamo.
Home Minister Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail was reported to have said that the matter was discussed in a meeting with US special representative for Guantanamo affairs Tina Kaidanow in New York recently.
The two Malaysians are Mohammed Nazir Lep and Mohammed Farik Amin who face eight charges in the US military court.
These include seven related to the twin bombings that killed 202 people in Bali in October 2002 and the bombing at the JW Marriott Hotel in Jakarta in August 2003.
They were arrested in Thailand in 2003 and placed in solitary confinement at a secret location run by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) before being transferred to Guantanamo in 2006.
On January 16, Nazir, 46, and Farik, 48, pleaded guilty to complicity in the 2002 Bali bombing, after being locked up for twenty years without trial at the prison.
They were first charged in 2018 with nine offences linked to the 2002 Bali nightclub bombing that claimed 202 lives and the 2003 Jakarta Marriott Hotel bombing that left 11 people dead.
They were charged alongside Indonesian Encep Nurjaman, better known as Hambali, the main suspect in the Bali attacks.
However, in October last year, the New York Times reported that Farik and Nazir had reached agreement with prosecutors at Guantanamo Bay on charges of being accessories to the terrorist attacks in Bali, and hence separating them from Hambali’s case.
In pleading guilty, the duo agreed to testify against Hambali, the former leader of the Jemaah Islamiyah movement.
The NYT also reported that as part of the plea agreement, both were questioned by prosecutors, potentially for use in the trial of Hambali, which prosecutors want to hold next year. – The Vibes, January 23, 2024
