2,500 Malaysians in Foreign Prisons

KUALA LUMPUR, July 16 (Bernama) -- Some 2,500 Malaysians are held in prisons abroad for various offences in the first six months of this year. Deputy Foreign Minister A. Kohilan Pillay said among offences committed by the Malaysians were drug smuggling, murder, forging of credit cards, commercial crime, theft, immigration law violations, cheating and falsifying of documents, and human trafficking. They are currently imprisoned in Singapore (1,096), Thailand (444), China (231), Indonesia (148), Taiwan (137), Australia (77), Spain (47), Kuwait (33), Vietnam (29) and France (25). Kohilan said the government is preparing a mechanism to enable Malaysian prisoners abroad to be brought home and serve their jail term in the country under the Prison Act 1995 and Prison Regulations 2000. "A committee has been set up by various ministries and the Prisons Department to draw up an international transfer law that would allow the prisioners to be brought back to this country," he told the Senate on Monday. -- BERNAMA