Elusive cult leader Ayah Pin in south Thailand (Update)

GOMBAK: Elusive Sky Kingdom cult leader Ayah Pin, who disappeared after the crackdown at his Terengganu commune in 2005, is living in exile in southern Thailand, police said.
Ariffin Mohamad, 68, also known as Ayah Pin sneaked into Terengganu recently and was about to be picked up by the police who were, however, told by the state Religious Department to back off.
At the height of his popularity, the self-styled Prophet had four wives and had a following of 21 followers, including a police inspector and a drummer of a rock group, all whom were arrested and are now on trial.
Known for his giant structures of a teapot, vase, umbrella, concrete boat and a “palace” at his commune, he had claimed God was human and his deviant teachings included not making Friday prayers compulsory.
“We received information that Ayah Pin, who is still at large, was living in the south of Thailand.
“Recently, he had returned (to Malaysia) but we were told (by the Terrenganu Religious Department) not to act yet (arresting him),” Inspector General of Police Tan Sri Musa Hassan said.
When pressed by reporters when exactly he was last seen, the IGP reiterated ‘recently’ and did not elaborate.
Musa was speaking at a seminar on ‘Strenghtening the Administration of Justice in the Syariah Court” organised at Universiti Islam Antarabangsa Malaysia on Thursday.
He brought up the subject while speaking on the topic of overlapping jurisdiction of state religious departments and Syariah courts with the police on cases involving Muslims.
“In the Ayah Pin case, it was the Syariah courts that first monitored the group before the police assisted them in gathering information.
“We passed our information to the (state) religious department but they were slow to act and by the time we received the green light from them to detain him, he had run away,” Musa said.
He said it was time for the police and the Syariah court and state religious departments to streamline their rules and jurisdictions to stop this sort of problems from ever occurring in the future.
Ayah Pin, in his sermons, claimed the Sky Kingdom had given him the power and right to unite people of the “whole world” irrespective of their religion.
Ayah Pin was declared an apostate for leaving Islam and spent 11 months in jail in 2001 for his activities.
A month after religious department officials and police raided his commune on July 18 2005, mobs donning ski masks, skullcaps, white flowing robes as well as all-black attire went on a rampage destroying the structures and setting fire to five vehicles at the commune.
Meanwhile, in Kuala Terengganu, State Religious Affairs' and Information committee deputy chairman Muhamad Ramli Nuh said the religious department felt that Ayah Pin or Ariffin Mohamad could go free as he was no more an influential person as his teaching had been quenched.
"Our mission was to eliminate his teaching and we have no intention of dragging him to court as this would be time consuming and bring no compensating gains."
"We were successful in shooing him away to southern Thailand and that is more relevant," he said on Thursday.
However, Muhamad Ramli said the religious department would continue to track his movements.
He said the Sky Kingdom base in Besut was no longer active while his followers had also disbanded.
"We are not worried about him and feel that it would be also a waste of time to charge him in court," he said.
Muhamad Ramli said it was not true that the enforcement officers were afraid to apprehend him as he possessed supernatural powers and could vanish.
"All this talk is just ridiculous. The man is old and frail, let him spend his twilight years repenting," he added.
When asked if he had known Ayah Pin’s whereabouts when he had visited Terengganu, Muhamad Ramli replied "Yes, we have been monitoring his movement closely.”
"The allegation that Ayah Pin was seen intoxicated in Kuala Lumpur at a karaoke outlet is baseless," he said.

'Little San Jose': Culture shock in Vietnam

HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam - Because of their cultural understanding and language skills, Vietnamese-Americans have a distinct advantage when it comes to doing business in this Southeast Asian country. Many are surprised, though, by how American Vietnam makes them feel.
City in motion
Former Bay Area resident Mark Tran, founder of business processing company Transcend People Limited near the Tan Son Nhat International Airport, was downright terrified when confronted with crossing a Ho Chi Minh City street for the first time.
"Everybody has the right of way," he said of the daily free-for-all among bicycles, motorbikes, cars, buses, trucks and pedestrians. "During my first trip back, I crossed a road but couldn't cross back. So I walked about a mile until I found people crossing and crossed with them."
Thinh Nguyen returned in 2002 to launch Pyramid Software Development. He's constantly surprised with how Vietnamese treat the game of golf like a day at the office - it's all pressed slacks and knit shirts on the links.
"They have a strict dress code," said Nguyen one recent Saturday morning as he teed up at a driving range hugging the Saigon River. Apparently, the former Silicon Valley resident hadn't read the dress-code memo: He wore white shorts, a Harley-Davidson T-shirt and a baseball cap - turned backward.
"I miss a good pickup basketball game," he admitted between swings.
and Katherine Thinh recently left the Bay Area to launch an online music start-up in Ho Chi Minh City.
Esther Nguyen said her Vietnamese language skills aren't always up to snuff when it comes to leading business meetings. "It's great when I want to talk with my parents," she said. "But my Vietnamese isn't good enough to actually convey all my thoughts and feelings. So sometimes we have to be animated, draw things or speak half Vietnamese, half English."
She's also shifted her direct management style. "Here, I have to be softer. They are already timid with me."
As women, they've had to adapt to a culture with different expectations of proper female behavior.
Changing ways
"You should not go out drinking," Katherine Thinh said. "You see that in the States with American women, but you don't see that with Vietnamese women. Even though I am an American, I don't want to develop a reputation. So I have to behave myself."
The longtime friends, who share an apartment in a Western-style high-rise, are nonetheless happy to be in Vietnam, a country they now call home.
"It's just exciting to be here in the midst of change - being back here to better understand where I came from, where my parents came from," Katherine Thinh said.
John Boudreau of the San Jose Mercury News