IGP's Company Is Flogging Guns In KL! MAJOR EXCLUSIVE
She could recommend us a Glock, suggested the assistant at Nilai Arms & Ammunition this week.
The KL company boasts online
that it can offer the “best selection” of guns available, and we had
explained we were looking for something suitable for our ‘bodyguard’.
Niloh displays an array of weapons for sale, both of the sort used for hunting and of the sort that gangsters use to kill.
Lethal weapons – take your pick
As its name suggests, Nilai also sells “ammunition”, something else
that it elaborates on its website. “Out of ammo?” it advertises with a
catchy American ring, “call NAA”. Displayed are cartridges and deadly
bullets.
Shotgun cartridges… as well as deadly bullets!
Need a permit?
In Malaysia, of course, the use and ownership of guns is highly
restricted. In fact, as the site helpfully points out, you need to
acquire a permit signed not only by your district police chief, but also
the state police chief and indeed the national police chief (the IGP)
as well.
It’s quite a lot to organise.
However, Sarawak Report was drawn to Nilai arms by disgruntled
people, who got in touch, because it has become a known thing, they
said, that if you want to get that permit without excessive fuss and
bother, then you had better go through this particular company to buy
your weapon.
” Applicants for import / usage license, when they failed to get the permits, they will resort to appoint NAA, which will smooth the application” was how one person contacting Sarawak Report explained the situation.
How come?
Sarawak Report pulled the company records for Nilai Arms &
Ammunition Sdn Bhd, which is registered in KL, and found some
exceedingly interesting ownership details. The majority of the shares
belong to a young woman, born in 1984.
Juwiza Binti Khalid is the second daughter of the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Khalid Abu Bakar.
IGP’s 32 year old daughter is the majority owner of the company, set up in 2012 just before Abu Bakar was appointed
Bigwigs in Malaysia are no strangers to conflict of interest, of
course, but this example of it is surely one of the most breath-taking!
That the man who is supposedly in charge of keeping law and order on
the streets, to which end a tight control over the issuing of gun
permits means that only he can sign them off, actually owns a company
that sells these weapons and can assist in “smoothing the application”
for his signature, simply defies belief.
Office in KL
It would appear that Abu Bakar spends his day job catching dangerous
criminals, only to go home to sign off lucrative permits to allow their
weapons (sold by his own private company) to be made available on the
streets.
As one KL observer remarked bitterly to Sarawak Report “the
police have an interest in the town becoming more dangerous for middle
class folk. It means they have to live in compounds and hire former
police officers to be their bodyguards”.
One can forgive the cynicism. Because Khalid stands to get richer
the more dangerous the streets become and his retired colleagues will
thank him for the increase in bodyguard positions!
This is why it is so supremely important that people in public
positions avoid all such conflicts of interest, whether they hold the
shares themselves or put them in the names of their young daughter.
When we started to press for further help and information on getting
our Glock and permit the shop assistant gave us the phone number for her
“boss”, whom she told us was Haji Mohd Isa. He was the one to talk to.
Other shareholder is the village head from IGP’s home town, born in the very same year!
The boss she was referring to, of course, is none other than the other shareholder in the company, Mohd Isa bin Hussein.
Mohd Isa is the village chief of Kampung Gebok, Mantin, Negeri Sembilan, the same region as Nilai.
Should we consider it a coincidence that IGP Khalid Abu Baker was
born in Kg Gebok, Mantin, Negeri Sembilan in the same year of 1957 as
this village chief?
One can only assume that these two village lads went to school
together, were probably friends and went hunting together as well!
But we could not check because Mohd Isa wasn’t picking up the phone.
The current IGP was appointed in May 2013, a year after he opened his
company, and has proved extremely controversial, having focused his
activities on persecuting civil rights activists and freedom of speech
in line with the present government’s priority in protecting the
reputation of the Prime Minister.
No doubts about it
Khalid has opened a special five man unit to scour Tweets for
‘seditious tendencies’ and he arrested opposition MP on the steps of
Parliament last month, for saying he had read a secret document that
showed corruption at 1MDB.
He has also been condemned for supporting the unlawful shooting by a
police officer of a 15 year old boy, shot 21 times by pursuing cops.
What’s more, he remains together with the handpicked AG, the most
important remaining champion of the current Prime Minister, who is
drowning in evidence of corruption over 1MDB.
What chance there will be action taken therefore against this bit of business on the side by IGP Khaled Abu Bakar?
“A country that if free and clear of any governance and policing of money launderers is prone to become a handy trading hub for organised crime and terrorism and this is one example of what is happening on a very big scale in Malaysia” said Pascal Najadi, whose father was gunned down on the streets of KL by a hired assassin whom the police refused to prosecute in 2013.
Non-committal about ‘IGP’s daughter and gun sales’ report
Deputy IGP says sons and daughters of police officers have the right to run businesses as long as rules are followed.
PETALING JAYA: The police remained non-committal today in response to a report that the daughter of the Inspector-General, Khalid Abu Bakar, was the owner of a firearms company in Kuala Lumpur.
The deputy IGP, Noor Rashid Ibrahim, when asked about the report, said the police would look into what was published by Sarawak Report in further detail.
However, he said any individual, including the children of police officers, had the right to engage in any type of business as long as they obtained approval from the authorities.
“What is important is that any work done must follow the rules, even if the individual is the child of a police officer,” he said.
“Anyone in this country has equal opportunities to engage in business and if they follow the rules, this means there are no issues there,” he said at a press conference after attending the graduation of cadet inspectors at the Police Training Centre in Kuala Lumpur.
According to Sarawak Report, members of the public could purchase firearms and easily obtain a permit through the company.
A police watchdog organisation has urged the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission to investigate whether the firearms company had any contracts with the government. “If yes, then it’s conflict of interest,” Malaysia Crime Watch head R Sri Sanjeevan was reported to have said.
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