Terror "exclusive" fails to ask obvious questions

The Star's front-page story today "New face of terror" is an unfortunate example of journalism that is long on speculation and short on fact and critical questioning.

In their "exclusive" story, terror reporters Wong Chun Wai and Lourdes Charles regurgitate the security officials' version of events without asking any serious questions.

For all the promise, the article does not tell us all that much except that terror suspect Hambali "is providing vital information to security agencies on the operations of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda movement in the region."

The article quotes an unnamed regional security source as saying, "He is talking but we want to know more." Hmm, very revealing.

But how is he being made to talk? No one even knows for sure. Is he being tortured? Our reporters don't want to know. Critics have questioned the reliablity of information extracted under torture as is in many cases those tortured invariably tell their interrogators what they want to hear.

All we are told is that the Americans are holding Hambali. The journalists speculate that "there are indications" that he could possibly be at the Guantanamo Bay (uh-oh!) detention centre in Cuba.

Mention Guantanamo Bay these days and the average thinking person is likely to think of US ill-treatment of detainees there as well as in other places like Abu Ghraib. (Wasn't the guy in charge of Guantanamo Bay responsible for the revamped procedures in Abu Ghraib that led to torture and abuse?) The real possibility of ill-treatment or even torture does not concern our intrepid Star journalists, who are happy to pass off security officials' assertions as reality.

But then, the Daily Telegraph of the UK said in a report today that "senior American intelligence and military officials directly contradicted the Bush administration yesterday, saying not a single detainee at Guantanamo Bay was a high-ranking terrorist." If this is true, it would mean that Hambali is not considered a "high-ranking terrorist" or he isn't in Guantanamo Bay. So where is he?

The Star article is full of phrases such as "is accused of", "allegedly delivered", "it is understood", "it is learnt", "intelligence agencies want to hear", "the interrogation focussed on", Hambali "was said to have helped", etc. We are asked to accept these assertions at face value without any evidence to back them up. Nor are we provided with Hambali's responses.

At the end of the day, no reliable evidence has been provided simply because the suspect is being held without trial, in violation of natural justice and human rights conventions.

Incredibly, this whole "exclusive" article does not even attempt to identify or meaningfully describe any of its sources.

The article mentions that the Americans "had yet to allow regional security forces to quiz Hambali". Again, The Star reporters fail to ask the obvious question - why? And why is the location where he is being held such a secret?

Why indeed hasn't he been brought to trial? After all, Abubakar Bashir, whom several Governments and security agencies in South-East Asia regard as the prime mover within the alleged terror network, Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), was himself brought to court in Indonesia.

So why has Hambali been spirited away to some US hideout for such a long interrogation without trial?

The Star reporters fail to probe critically. Instead, their piece sounds like a one-sided version that provides "exclusive" space for an unnamed "regional security source" and other "officials". In that sense, it is indeed an "exclusive" piece.