GEORGE TOWN: Police have uncovered the existence of a second group of Myanmar fugitives in Penang who are suspected to be linked to a series of killings in the state since early this year.

Penang police chief Datuk Abdul Rahim Hanafi said investigators got wind of the new group after piecing together leads following the discovery of a body of a foreigner with multiple stab wounds at the Relau Metropolitan Park on Monday.

He said this at a press conference at the state police headquarters yesterday.

Abdul Rahim released the identities of two Myanmar men who could help investigations into the case and are believed to be on the island. He urged the public to inform the police if they know of their whereabouts.

They are Mohd Yahyar Khan Mohd Rafie, 42, and a Lokman in his 20s.

Rahim said 20 men have so far been arrested on suspicion of being connected to the first group of alleged killers. This group operated separately from the newly discovered one detected on Monday, he said.

Of the 20, eight have been released on bail.

“The 12 who are still under detention have confessed to being involved in nine of the murder cases.

He said all the suspects and the identified victims were from Myanmar, and that there was no local involvement in the cases.

The recruitment of members into the groups, most of whom had entered Malaysia illegally, was done here and not in Myanmar.

The suspects had day-time jobs in Malaysia, mostly as contract labourers and wiremen.

Police last week described several murders as gruesome, as the bodies were chopped up and the parts discarded in various locations.

Two weeks ago, the police launched Ops Kelar — an operation to probe into the murders — and detained the suspects in their 20s to 40s, including two men in Rawang, in connection with the cases.

A house in Kampung Pisang in Machang Bubok, where two of the suspects lived, was allegedly used as a human slaughterhouse.

Asked about the motives behind the killings, Abdul Rahim denied that they were due to the ethnic conflict in Myanmar or to human smuggling from there to Malaysia.

“There is no racial element. It is only vengeance of a personal nature.”

He said the cases also did not involve ransom. — The Malaysian Insider

This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on December 12, 2014.