The Jakarta Globe, October 13, 2013.
Malaysian police are searching for two Indonesian men after Friday’s deadly shootout with members of the Ah Fatt Gang left four alleged gangsters dead in a Kuala Lumpur housing project, according to local media reports.
Police stormed an apartment inhabited by at-least four Indonesian migrants in the Hiliran Ampang public housing projects early Friday morning. The men were allegedly part of the Ah Fatt Gang, a criminal organization accused of several armed robberies and burglaries targeting the city’s elite since 2008, according to reports in Malaysian media. Malaysian Youth and Sports Minister Khairy Jamaluddin was allegedly among their victims.
On Thursday, the men reportedly robbed the home of a retired army official and his wife in Bukit Antarbangsa. They allegedly tied the couple up and stole 2,000 Malaysian ringgit ($628) in cash, as well as jewelry and valuables, according to the Malaysian newspaper the New Straits Times.
The men then retreated to the apartment to wait for a taxi driver to fence the wares.When police arrived at the apartment, on Jalan Ampang Putra, at 3:30 a.m. they reportedly opened fire.
“My men had to return fire and all four robbers were killed in the fire fight,” Kuala Lumpur Police chief Sr. Deputy Comr. Datuk Mohmad Salleh told the Malaysian newspaper The Star.
Two others were believed to be armed and on the run on Saturday.
The taxi driver was arrested in the bust.
The men told neighbors they were fish traders and lived a largely quiet life, neighbors said.
“They come and go every few months,” one neighbor told the New Straits Times. “We never really noticed them. They do not mix around and we just mind our own business.”
The Indonesian Embassy’s counselor in Kuala Lumpur Dino Nurwahyudin confirmed the reports in an interview with the Indonesian news portal Tempo.co.
The deaths came on the heels of a similar shootout between police and Indonesian robbers in Klang, Selangor. Officers shot dead three Indonesian nationals during a firefight on the Duta-Ulu Klang Expressway on Wednesday, according to Tempo.co. The men were accused of several armed robberies in Selangor state.
Malaysian police have staged a nationwide crackdown on criminal organizations in recent months as a wave of violent crime stoked public outcry. The country’s near-daily shootings prompted calls for tougher law enforcement from Prime Minister Najib Razak after a prominent businessman was gunned down in a brazen daylight contract killing.
The ruling Barisan Nasional put the blame on the repeal of a controversial law allowing the preventive jailing of alleged criminals amid protest from human rights groups in 2011. Critics of the ruling party, on the other hand, accuse the police of corruption and incompetence, blaming security forces’ unprofessionalism for the rise in crime.
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zo 13 okt 2013 - 7:36