RIGHTS-MALAYSIA: Police Reject Ombudsman as Lockup Deaths Rise

By Baradan Kuppusamy Reprint | | Print |

Baradan Kuppusamy

KUALA LUMPUR, Apr 10 2006 (IPS) - The most dangerous place in Malaysia may well be the inside of a police lockup, going by the deep concern expressed by lawyers, human rights activists and even senior judges about the number of people who die in police custody..

They have also expressed shock that in many cases inquests are not held, although the law clearly provides for this.

There is a familiar pattern to the deaths. An odd job worker, detained for theft, is fished out of the river several days later. An unemployed person dies six hours after he is put in a lockup for creating disturbance in a mosque. A lorry driver taken in for ‘suspicious behaviour’ is found dead the next morning.

In the last five years, over 90 persons have perished in highly suspicious circumstances, soon after being taken into custody.

What caused their deaths? The official records usually attribute it to tuberculosis, pneumonia or something even more banal such as ‘chest pain’.

”So many have died under mysterious circumstances but not a single police personnel has been charged let alone investigated since 2000,” said lawyer P. Uthayakumar, an adviser to Police Watch, a non-government organisation founded to fight for victims of police brutality.

Uthayakumar heads a growing campaign to end custodial death. ”A lockup is probably the most dangerous place in the country today,” he told IPS.

While, earlier, it was a small group of dedicated lawyers and human rights activists like Uthayakumar who relentlessly pursued and demanded accountability and transparency, whenever a detainee died, this time the cudgels have been taken up by the country’s higher judiciary.

No less than chief justice Siti Norma has demanded accountability and prompt inquest into each custodial death.

She expressed deep concern that 80 deaths had occurred in police custody between 2000 and 2004 but only six inquests were conducted. Worse, no police personnel were implicated although many detainees died in mysterious circumstances.

”In some instances, death occurred hours after detention,” she said, citing the example of mechanic Alias Othman who was detained at 10 pm on Mar. 22 for allegedly causing disturbance at a mosque but was dead six hours later.

”The obvious question one would ask is: What happened to Alias Othman? That question can only be answered if an inquest is held for him,” she said at a recent forum of lawyers and judges.

Norma said the failure to conduct inquests has the public suspecting foul play and as a consequence negative perceptions about the police force have arisen.

”The law governing death of persons in police custody is clearly set out in section 334 of the criminal procedure code and, from my reading of it, it is mandatory to hold inquests to ascertain the cause or causes of death,” she said.

The semi-official ‘New Straits Times’ daily also weighed in with an editorial on Apr. 3 that urged police to criminally punish errant officers and not just take disciplinary action. “Why not name them and shame them? Honouring esprit de corps is noble, but policemen who dishonour the force do not deserve its protective embrace,” the paper said.

Responding to the stinging criticism, the government has ordered that inquests must be conducted immediately for each death in police custody. Police also ordered their officers to urgently prepare ‘sudden death’ reports for magistrates to conduct the inquest.

While critics hail the changes, they also say an inquest by an inexperienced magistrate rarely moves cases forward. The few inquests that have been conducted have returned open verdicts, in effect clearing police of any criminal charges.

”Magistrates invariably buy the police version of the case. They don’t probe nor do they conduct an in-depth and independent inquiry. They are invariably afraid of the police,” said Uthayakumar. ”Policemen who are clearly involved in the deaths are getting away scot free.”

A case in point is the death of G. Francis Udayapan, 24 whose body was fished out of a river in May 2004. His mother claims her son was beaten to death by police and his body later thrown into a nearby river. Police however said Udayapan escaped by scaling a fence and jumped into the river and was drowned.

The body, covered in deep bruises, lay in a mortuary for nearly two years as the family and police fought over the allegations. An inquest was held. On Apr. 7 the magistrate returned another open verdict clearing police.

”The magistrate did not go deeply into how Udayapan died and whether there was foul play,” said S. Arulchelvam, secretary general of the Malaysian Socialist Party who was holding a watching brief for human rights organisations.

”One reason is that magistrates are young and inexperienced,” he told IPS. ”The inquest exposed the inherent weaknesses in the inquest system with the ordinary magistrates doubling up as coroners.”

”They nearly always rely heavily on the police version of events,” he told IPS. “We cannot accept the police version when they are implicated. We need a full fledged coroner’s court headed by a senior judge to get at the truth.”

Magistrates have absolved the police of blame in 39 of the 96 deaths in custody between January and March 2006, a police spokesman told IPS. “Inquests were conducted in 11 cases and the remaining cases are at various stages of investigation,” the spokesman said rejecting criticism that the victims died because of police brutality. He declined further comment.

The Asian Legal Resource Centre or ALRC said in a recent statement that the government has admitted that dozens of detainees had died in custody but it neglects to mention the circumstances or causes of their deaths.

”In fact, some die of torture, some are denied access to medicine for chronic illnesses, some due to sheer neglect and insanitary conditions,” said ALRC. ”Police in Malaysia operate with impunity, are corrupt and complacent.”

”It is important to initiate prompt inquiries into all deaths in custody and punish fully those responsible,” the ALRC said.

Lawyers say one sure way to ensure accountability and transparency is for an independent oversight commission to investigate and punish abuses in the force.

Such a commission was strongly recommended by two independent investigations into police abuses in the past 12 months. They concluded that an Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission or IPCMC was urgently needed to restore accountability, instil fear and respect for due process and punish offenders.

The government agreed to set up an IPCMC but after much delay the police announced last week that they rejected such a commission because their dignity would suffer and morale would be weakened.

The rejection shook the nation and was seen as a challenge to Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi whose reform plans are seen as slow and ineffectual by civil society but too drastic by entrenched institutions like the police force.

”The government must set up the IPCMC without delay because it will check police corruption and make police accountable,” said Zaid Ibrahim, a lawmaker and influential leader in the ruling UMNO party.

He said police as civil servants cannot set policy but must accept what the cabinet has decided or quit.