SHAH ALAM, 24 Apr: The Member of Parliament for Lumut, First Admiral (Rtd) Imran Abdul Hamid, questioned the enforcement of Malaysian maritime, which allegedly failed to detect an emergency signal from a Japanese ship raided near Pulau Ketam early Tuesday morning.
The former Malaysian Royal Navy Armada Base Chief Logistics Staff questioned the monitoring of maritime enforcement agencies of the country that is so loose to a point of not being aware of a ship in trouble in the waters of the Straits of Malacca.
“The Japanese ship had emergency equipment, why did Malaysia not detect it?
“It is not like they cannot detect it. Because the Japanese ship has radio signals for emergencies, other ships could detect it. How could the APMM not?” asked Imran, taken from Keadilan Daily.
This is because the diesel transfer takes from seven to eight hours and after that, all suspects left the ship.
The waters and beaches in Malaysia are guarded by four maritime agencies; the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (APMM), the Malaysian Royal Navy (MRN), the Marine Police and the Marine Movement Team (PGM).
“We are questioning where they were when this incident took place. If they were patrolling and were doing their job, certainly the ship would have been detected,” said Imran.
In the incident, which took place early Tuesday morning, 18 crew members, including the captain of the ship, faced distress when the ship carrying five million litres of diesel was raided about 16 nautical miles from Pulau Ketam, near Klang.
Five men and two carrying pistols and machetes tied the captain and the crew to raid the unnamed Japanese ship by transferring two million litres of diesel to two tanker ships.
Imran added that the government is responsible for the incident.
“Before the kidnapping issue in Sabah is settled, a Japanese ship is raided.
“This proves that the government is not able to solve many problems involving the country, including the issue of the missing MH370 aircraft,” said Imran.
