Friendship : Australia’s gift to Malaysian Immigration

PUTRAJAYA: Ties between Malaysian and Australia have been enhanced with a special gift — a forensic laboratory equipment to detect fake documents from the latter.

The equipment will be used at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport Immigration laboratory.

While handing over the equipment to KLIA Immigration chief Mohd Zulfikar Ahmad in a simple ceremony yesterday, Australian High Commission Immigration councillor Meredith Byron said the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service were instrumental in securing funding for the gift.

Zulfikar said the equipment could capture images that could later be used as court evidence.

Earlier, in a special interview, deputy Home Ministry secretary-general (registration and immigration) Datuk Raja Azahar Raja Abdul Manap said the gift was testimony of the warm relationship and strong level of cooperation between the two countries.

Since the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on immigration cooperation in 2007, he said Malaysia and Australia immigration authorities has held various programmes, including training and workshops, for their personnel.

“During a visit last year, their officials noticed that our machine called Dragonbox, which was used to authenticate travel papers at KLIA, was already 20 years old and offered a new machine.

“We accepted the kind gift and will use it at our KLIA Immigration laboratory while the existing one will be used at the Low-Cost Carrier Terminal in Sepang.”

Raja Azahar said current ties between the two countries were at an all-time high and Malaysia shared Australia’s concern in ensuring that the country would not be used as a transit point for people seeking illegal entry into the latter.

Last year, the department issued 14,500 “Not-to-Land” orders to bar suspected criminals from entering the country, and the information was shared with Australia.

It is a major concern for Australia that foreigners can enter Malaysia legally and leave it illegally to get into their country. They asked us to cooperate and shared their knowledge, experience and resources with us.

“We and other local enforcement agencies are benefiting from the joint cooperation.”

He said Malaysia had stopped issuing visas-on-arrival last year because it was abused by immigrants, and replaced it with a transit-without-visa (TWOV), allowing visitors for a five-day stay without visa.

To prevent abuse, TWOV is only given to visitors boarding MAS or AirAsia flights, and already hold a visa to a third country, namely Australia, United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, China, South Korea and New Zealand.

He said Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein would attend a two-day conference on the Bali Process, jointly-chaired by Australia and Indonesia at month-end.

Read more: Australia’s gift to Malaysian Immigration http://www.nst.com.my/nst/articles/Australia__8217_sgifttoMalaysianImmigration/Article#ixzz1Fg4kcCOp