Four Thai individuals were prosecuted under Malaysia’s anti-trafficking legislation for mass graves and refugee transit camps uncovered eight years ago in a steep forest along the Thai-Malaysian border. According to the Star, the males, ages 30 to 58, came in court in Kangar, Perlis, on Friday morning. The media reported that a court interpreter read the allegations, which included trafficking two Myanmar citizens, Zedul Islam and Mohd Belai. Pleas weren’t recorded.
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The first mass grave, involving over 30 fatalities, was found in April 2015 in temporary camps near Wang Kelian established up by traffickers smuggling people across the border. After an intensive investigation, hundreds of Rohingya refugee graves with many bodies were unearthed. Thailand and Malaysia investigated the camps and convicted 62 individuals, including nine government officials, for Rohingya and Bangladeshi killings and trafficking to Malaysia via Thailand in 2017. The four Thais were extradited on Thursday by Home Affairs Minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail. On Thursday, he said Malaysia was “committed to maintaining border security and viewed issues of cross-border crime seriously, particularly human trafficking and migrant smuggling”. In 2019, Malaysia established a Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) to examine the disaster. 48 witnesses testified. While no Malaysian enforcement officers, public workers, or local inhabitants were implicated in trafficking syndicates, border guards were “grossly negligent” in failing to discover the camps. An independent assessment by Malaysia’s human rights commission (SUHAKAM) and Fortify Rights found “reasonable grounds” to suggest a human trafficking syndicate perpetrated crimes against humanity in Malaysia and Thailand against Rohingya men, women, and children from 2012 to 2015.
The organization also tricked Rohingya from Myanmar’s northeastern Rakhine state into boarding ships for Thailand and Malaysia and tortured them. Many Rohingya have fled to Malaysia, a Muslim majority country, fearing rising violence in Rakhine. The International Court of Justice is investigating the genocide of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya who fled to Bangladesh in 2017. Many Rohingya risk risky boat rides to enter Malaysia. At the end of last year, the UN refugee agency claimed 2022 was one of the worst years for such crossings.
