Kota Kinabalu: The Malaysian Government should officially and immediately ask the Australian Government to release the latter’s full report on the Double Six air crash, said SAPP president Datuk Yong Teck Lee.
Further, he said, both the Malaysian and Australian reports must be published in full.
Yong, who is also former Chief Minister, said this is because the reason used by the Australian National Archives in withholding publication of the full report was that “release of the information could reasonably be expected to cause damage to the international relations of the Commonwealth.”
Another reason stated by the Australian National Archives, he said, is that “Malaysia has not as yet publicly released their final and full report of the investigation.” He disclosed, the Australian National Archives titled the report as “Accident Malaysia Nomad Aircraft 9M-ATZ on 6 June, 1976.”
The Daily Express’ award winning team of journalists presents ‘Double Six: The Untold Stories’, a documentary on the plane crash in Sabah (East Malaysia) killing the newly-elected Chief Minister of Sabah Tun Mohd Fuad Stephens, four state ministers and six others on June 6th, 1976. After 46 years the findings of the crash also known to many as The Double Six Tragedy have not been disclosed. Note: This series unravels information not previously available to the public, but does not in any way attribute blame for the crash on any party.
“In two replies to my representative dated March 14, 2012, the Australian National Archives stated that their ‘records contain technical detail which could impact on the Commonwealth’s (Australia’s) relations with the current government of a foreign country’,” he said in a statement.
In this case, he claimed, that foreign country has to mean Malaysia and no other. He said the reason the Australian report has to appear in full is because the Australian National Archives had also disclosed that ‘certain parts of the text have been expunged’ (that is, erased).
“The replies from the Australian archives disclosed that a total of 110 folios are withheld from publication. Each folio contains more than one page.”
Hence, Yong said only the release of the full reports, in both Malaysia and Australia, can bring closure to this extremely painful chapter of Sabah’s history.
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