Bar Council wants inquest to probe handcuff death

The Malaysian Insider
by Boo Su-Lyn

KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 26 – The Malaysian Bar today called for an inquest on the death of security guard C. Sugumaran, the latest incident in a string of custodial deaths over the years that have tarnished public confidence in the police force.

In a statement here, Bar Council president Lim Chee Wee said the incident is a matter of “utmost public interest” and warrants the highest level of priority.

“These deaths must not be relegated to a mere statistic,” Lim said.

But Lim said structural reform is also needed, where such inquests are concerned, noting that past inquiries had returned “open verdicts”.

He repeated the Bar’s call for the government to introduce a “Coroners’ Act” and establish a “Coroners’ Court” to try such cases of custodial deaths and the like.

He said these initiatives must come with features such as a clearly-stated aim, which is to focus on identifying the deceased and ascertaining how, when and where this person had died; creating official posts of state coroner and coroners, which are to be appointed by the prime minister on the Chief Justice’s recommendation. The coroner is responsible for supervising police investigations; and that only pathologists, or medical practitioners supervised by these pathologists can conduct post-mortems.

On Wednesday, eyewitnesses had said that the 39-year-old Sugumaran was chased down last week by four policemen who subsequently handcuffed and beat him to death together with a mob of more than 20 people in Hulu Langat.

They said that after the policemen caught and handcuffed him, more than 20 other men from a nearby restaurant joined the policemen and proceeded to assault him.

“The police stepped on Sugumaran’s neck,” R. Moohanarajan said when met at the Serdang Hospital. “Twenty to thirty people wearing plain clothes beat him up. He was lying facedown with his hands handcuffed behind,” added Moohanarajan, who was Sugumaran’s neighbour.

But on Thursday, the Kajang police denied assaulting the security guard to death, citing the hospital’s first post-mortem on Sugumaran, which showed that the man had died of a heart attack.

In the police’s version of the incident, the Batu 14 Hulu Langat police station had received a call at about 6.30pm on Wednesday from a Malay man saying that Sugumaran had run amok and was destroying public property.

He added that three policemen in a patrol car and a motorbike tailed Sugumaran, who was on foot, for about two kilometres from Dusun Sri Nanding to Taman Lagenda Suria in Hulu Langat as the latter waved an iron rod, destroying flower vases near houses and electrical wires, until he fell down in the middle of the road.

But citing eyewitness accounts, lawyers for Sugumaran’s family have refused to accept the police version of the story and have demanded a second post-mortem, apart from insisting that the case be classified as murder under Section 302 of the Penal Code.

They have also repeated calls for the formation of the Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission (IPCMC), a major demand of the federal opposition, rights groups and civil society activists for years now.

The IPCMC is meant to sit as an independent body that would look into reforming police procedures and ensuring the country’s crime busters face punitive action themselves, should their misadventures lead to more such fatal mishaps.

Agreeing, Lim noted today that statistics disclosed by the Home Affairs Ministry recently had revealed that a total of 156 individuals have died in police custody between 2000 and February 2011.

“Such tragedies underscore the dire need for an IPCMC, to function as an independent, external oversight body to investigate complaints about police personnel and to make the police accountable for their conduct.

“These deaths are inexcusable, and is another incident demonstrating that the police are unable to police themselves,” he said.

Joining the Bar in its views, Suara Rakyat Malaysia (SUARAM) executive director E. Nalini said the police has lost its credibility among the public and earned the reputation as the “agent for immediate death sentence for detainees”.

She agreed that an inquiry must be held into Sugumaran’s death and the IPCMC set up immediately to initiate reforms within the police force.

“The police seem to have little regard to the values of a human life,” she said.