DAP’s Ramasamy angry at Muhyiddin over LTTE claims

DAP’s Ramasamy angry at Muhyiddin over LTTE claims




P. Ramasamy


KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 15, 2022: Penang DAP deputy chief P Ramasamy has hit out at Perikatan Nasional (PN) chairman Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, who yesterday claimed that DAP had tried to delist the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) as a terrorist group.

In his statement, Ramasamy questioned the need to arrest 12 individuals, whom he described as “ordinary members of the Indian community”, for allegedly supporting the LTTE in 2019.

“Was there a serious national security threat from the 12 persons, especially since some of them were ordinary contract workers and odd-job labourers?” he asked.

Ramasamy also questioned whether the police had any evidence to make the arrest and why it was done under the Security Offences (Special Measures) Act 2012 (Sosma), which enables the detention of terrorism suspects for up to 28 days without trial.

Then attorney-general Tan Sri Tommy Thomas had in February 2020 dropped the charges against the 12 individuals, some of whom were DAP members.

Muhyiddin, who was the home minister at that time said in in a Facebook post yesterday that he had been briefed by the police that there were former LTTE members who had fled from Sri Lanka to Malaysia, but were still a threat to the country’s security.

He claimed that DAP was unhappy with his firm stance to keep LTTE in the country’s list of terror organisations and had tried to change his mind on the matter.

He accused the Pakatan Harapan (PH) component party of compromising national security for political interests.