ANYONE who wishes to champion the human rights cause of the three Gulen movement members deported back to Turkey can take the matter up with the Turkish government, deputy prime minister Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said.

Turgay Karaman, Ihsan Aslan and Ismet Ozcelik were repatriated to Ankara on May 11, a week after their arrests in Kuala Lumpur and Pahang.

“The three arrested were members of an organisation banned by the Turkish government. We handed them back to their government for further action.

“Any international body that wants to take up a human rights issue or anything else for the trio can deal directly with the Turkish authorities,” he said after attending a dinner organised by Retired Senior Police Association in Kuala Lumpur last night.

The arrests, Zahid said, were precipitated by information received via the Regional Digital Counter-Messaging Communications Centre in KL. He denied that Turkey had asked for the three to be arrested.

Stockholm Centre of Freedom in its report last week called on the Malaysian government to stop doing the dirty bidding of the growingly repressive Turkish government led by President Tayyip Recep Erdogan, following the arrest and deportation of three Turkish nationals from the country.

Meanwhile, on the report that five heavily armed men were spotted in Felda Sahabat, Sabah on April 30, Zahid said the authorities are still investigating the matter.

He said the area had been cordoned off by the Eastern Sabah Security Command (Esscom) and off limits to civilians until further notice.

“We are done sweeping the area. But for now it still cordoned off by Esscom.”

Zahid said only one sighting of the men had been reported so far.

“Only one person saw the five men. Nevertheless we are checking,” he said.

The sighting of the armed men in Sabah has reminded the locals of the standoff between Malaysian soldiers and Royal Sulu fighters in Lahad Datu in 2013.

Six cops and two members of the military were killed defending the state against the Sulu intrusion. – May 16, 2017.