'Did my son beg for mercy before being shot?'

(Malaysiakini) There is nothing that she wants more than to see the person who killed her child be hauled up to court to face justice.

But for now, Norhafizah Mad Razali (left in pix) just cannot help thinking of her son's last moments before he was shot dead by police.

"I keep thinking what he was thinking, how he felt before the fatal shot. Did he plead for mercy? Was he crying in pain?" she said in tears, while her husband, Shapiei Zainal Abidin who in spite of his own wet eyes tried to offer comfort.

Their son, Mohd Shamil Hafiz Shapiei, was shot dead about 4am on Nov 13 on a street in Glenmarie in Shah Alam, Selangor. He was about a week away from turning 16.

He was shot once in the chest and in the middle of his forehead, an image which will not leave his parents' minds.

"Call it a mother's instinct...I don't know how or why, but the words just slipped out of my mouth when I saw his body: 'He has been murdered'," she said when met at the low-cost flat where they live in Kota Damansara.

The police have claimed they fired in self-defence, as Mohd Shamil and two others - Mohd Hanafi Omar (right), 22 and Hairul Nizam Tuah, 20, said to be from Cheras - had allegedly charged at police with machetes after attempting to rob a petrol station.

All three sustained similar gunshots to the chest and head, with Hairul Nizam also shot at the side of his head while Mohd Hanafi was shot at the top of his head.

All the bullets passed through the bodies, with exit wounds on Hairul Nizam's body at a lower part of his head and torso compared to the entry wound.

Headlines immediately after the incident screamed 'Teen Terrorist', with reports quoting the police as saying that Mohd Shamil was a seasoned criminal and a ringleader of Geng Minyak- a gang that had been targeting petrol stations across the Klang Valley.

If the manner in which the youths were shot dead was not enough to raise their suspicion, it was the police statements which have steeled the families' resolve to get more answers.

Hairul Nizam's sister Norliza Tuah took her concerns to their parliamentarian R Sivarasa (left) of PKR.

"I kept thinking of the way he was shot. The trajectory of the bullet (evident from the wounds) makes it seem like he was shot from a higher point. Did the police climb a tree to shoot him?

"My brother was afraid of the police and refused to drive if he didn't have his driver's licence on him because he was afraid of getting caught. How could he have charged at police with a machete?

“And where is this machete? I want to see it. We have not been shown anything that was found on (the deceased) and the police kept asking us what colour his helmet is, but he left his helmet at the cyber cafe."

Fourth person involved?

The helmet and the keys to the Hairul Nizam's motorcycle had been passed to Norliza on the morning of Nov 13 by his friends who had waited for him to return to the nearby cyber cafe where they were.

The friends told her that Hairul Nizam and Mohd Hanafi were there at 3.30am that day when someone in a Proton Waja - she does not know who - stopped by the cyber cafe and invited them out for supper.

"(Hairul Nizam) asked his friends to wait for him and said he would be back in a short while. They waited until morning but he never came back," she said.

The last time Norhafizah saw her son was at around 2.30am, when he came to the tomyam stall which she operates next to the flats.

"He always hung around with other youths who live here and played checkers. His father saw him at around 3am," she said.

Although only 15, Mohd Hafiz had much time on his hands as he was no longer attending school, having dropped out of Tahfiz (religious) school last year.

Norhafizah said he was not academically inclined and that he had asked her to search for a place for him to take up vocational training.

The teen's absence was noticed early in the morning as he has not returned home - something he had never done before.

"His sister was receiving an award for academic excellence (on Nov 13) and he told me he wanted to go to the ceremony. I called him several times but his phone was turned off," she said.

No drugs or alcohol found

Answers, albeit vague, were found in the morgue of Tuanku Ampuan Rahimah Hospital, where forensic pathologist Khairul Azman Ibrahim informed them of their worst nightmare.

"We asked the police officer who was there to tell us more but he only said that he was not at the scene of the incident. No one could answer us properly," said Norliza.

But what they did find out was that none of the youths were under the influence of drugs or alcohol when they died, leaving question marks over why they would charge at armed officers with machetes.

Just like slain teen Aminulrasyid Amzah's (right) family, who had in vain sought an apology from the police for labelling the 14-year-old a criminal, these families too cannot fathom that the youths were involved in criminal activity.

Also on their minds is the identity of the mysterious fourth person in the Proton Waja, in which police said the youths had sped off.

“That is for the police to find out, I don't want to speculate. I just want justice for my son, for my children,” Norhaliza said.

Her second son has been taunted by his peers who have been telling him that his brother was a criminal, while her four-year-old is now asking his parents to buy him a gun.

“The little one keeps asking us where his brother is, and when we don't answer he says, 'He is dead, shot by police...police are bad',” she said.

More than clearing the name of their loved one, Hairul Nizam's family also wants this to be the case that changes the way police conduct operations.

“Someone has been charged in the Aminulrasyid case…(but) there is still something wrong with the system in which the police operate.If this could happen to our family, it could happen to another family too.

“Maybe the real Geng Minyak is still out there and my brother was the scapegoat,” Norliza (left in pix) said.

The family has since filed a police report about their suspicion over the shooting.

An emergency motion on the issue, which Sivarasa attempted to raise in Parliament on Thursday, was rejected.

Mohd Hanafi's family filed a similar police report today.

Senior Shah Alam police officers could not be contacted for a response.