PRESS STATEMENT
“Repatriate Amalilio quickly to the Philippines for prosecution there”
5 January 2015
It was recently reported widely in Philippine media that the Philippine Department of Justice is sending a legal team to Malaysia soon to arrange for the extradition of Amalilio.
We welcome this initiative of the Philippine’s Department of Justice to bring suspected scam mastermind Manuel Amalilio, back from Malaysia to the Philippines to face a string of syndicated fraud charges next month. In our fact-finding trip to Manila in February 2013 we established that Amalilio, also known as Mohammad Kama bin Said, was sought by Filipino authorities for embezzling up to 15,000 investors of around RM 935 million (12 billion Pesos) in a Ponzi-type investment scheme under his company Aman Future Group back in 2012. The 15,000 victims of Amalilo include many Malaysians particularly from Sabah.
In January 2013, Philippine law enforcers were prohibited from boarding a plane with Amalilio from Malaysia back to the Philippines. Sabah police acting supposedly on the instructions of Musa Aman, the Chief Minister, and Attorney General Gani Patail, stopped his extradition claiming that Amalilio is a Malaysian citizen, and secondly, there is no extradition agreement between Malaysia and Philippines. He was subsequently charged for holding a fake Philippine passport to which he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to a period of two years in Kota Kinabalu.
At that time, we had questioned why the Malaysian authorities would be so interested in prosecuting Amalilo purportedly for having a “fake” Philippine passport. If Amalilio did in fact have a fake Philippine passport, the aggrieved party would have been the Philippine government and he should have been handed over to them. Was Amalilo’s prosecution for the so-called fake passport simply done in order to frustrate the Phillipppine government’s efforts to repatriate him?
Amalilio is a family relative to Sabah Chief Minister Musa Aman and also his brother Anifah Aman, the current Foreign Minister.
Although Amalilio was released in October this year, our government has yet to hand him over to the Philippine authorities for prosecution.
We urge Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak to give the necessary instructions immediately so that all our local agencies cooperate fully with the Philippine government and ensure that Amalilo is extradited quickly to the Philippines to face the criminal justice system there.
We remind Prime Minister Najib that Amalilio remains on Interpol’s list of wanted criminals. We must not be seen to be harbouring wanted criminals. We must also not be seen to continue to frustrate the wishes of the Philippine people who want justice for the crimes of Amalilio.
SIVARASA RASIAH
Member of Parliament for Subang
Member of Political Bureau and Central Committee for Parti Keadilan Rakyat
TIAN CHUA
Member of Parliament for Batu
Vice-President, Parti Keadilan Rakyat
DARELL LEIKING
Member of Parliament for Penampang
Vice-President, Parti Keadilan Rakyat
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