The murderer is unknown. No charges have been brought. There were witnesses. Yet both the death of ranger Mathew Medan and special branch detective R. Sagadevan are unexplained. Mohd Shah, another special branch detective was present as another hostage. His report has not been made public. He cannot have been unaware of the exact circumstances of the deaths. The shots were heard for a great distance. A large number of other witnesses were present.

The prime minister, however, in a story which accompanies the NST photo, offers his version of the motive behind the killings. He is quoted by reporters Shamsul Akmar and Letitia Samuel as saying that the killings of Mathew and Sagadevan were politically motivated. He said, "The people should reject those who spread hatred among the races and followers of different religions as failure to do so would result in riots which would destroy the country."

This theory of race riots is an interesting one, in that Malaysia has not experienced serious racial discord for over thirty years. Yet the prime minister makes it a centerpiece of his political propaganda. The deaths in Sauk fit neatly into his thesis that racial disharmony is imminent.

He bolstered his argument for a racial motivation by pointing out, "It is true that there was another Muslim who was tortured by the group but he was not killed. They killed Sagadevan and Mathew because they were non-Muslims." For some reason the prime minister failed to mention Jaafar Putih, who was also a hostage and a Muslim. Perhaps Jaafar Putih was not an original cast member, having appeared on the stage at the last moment.

The prime minister said the murders wanted to "topple the government" because they found it un-Islamic. "They wanted to establish a new Islamic government," he said. If one extrapolates from this overview, the two men were purposely shot in furtherance of this goal. Thus they were political murders.

According to the pm's theory their intent was to foment racial hatred as a means of undermining the Umno party. They meant to alert the country that they constituted a national security threat. So they shot Mathew and Sagadevan in the head as soon as they caught them. Hospital personnel who examined the corpses estimated that they had been dead four days. But a durian collector, Jaafar Putih, and special branch detective Mohd Shah, both Muslims, were spared.

But now it will be a little more difficult to get the independent testimony. Mohd Shah has been transferred to Malacca. Jaafar Putih, though kept in protective police custody from his release on July 6 to July 18, died under mysterious circumstances a short distance away. The hospital personnel involved have all been transferred to other parts of Malaysia.