The Malaysian Insight

A DOMESTIC dispute four years ago in Tampin ended in tragedy for the family of P. Karuna Nithi. The 42-year-old engineer’s wife had lodged a police report in May 2013 and on June 1, 2013, he was dead.

For Karuna’s family, the pain is still palpable. His older brother, P. Elam Sezhian, 48, is angry and distraught over the way his brother died.

“They killed him, you know, they killed my brother, he doesn’t know gangsters, he doesn’t know policeman. My brother’s case was just a simple case where the wife reports out of anger, my brother goes in, then suddenly my brother got beat up, suffered multiple injuries and dies,” he told The Malaysian Insight.

Karuna was a hardworking husband and his best friend, Elam said.

“He was very loving towards his children. Now, his eldest son is living with me, he always looks sad when he talks about his father, he misses his father a lot.

“I try my best to take care of him, but no matter what… he lost his father, a father is a father, I can’t do much,” he said, tears welling up.

Suhakam findings

Karuna is one of 256 detainees, who died in police custody between 2000 and 2015. Their deaths were attributed to police brutality and negligence.

Their cases have been highlighted in a 270-page report, prepared by the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam), and released last year.

The report pointed to several factors behind the police custodial deaths.

Elam said: “It’s been almost four years since my brother died. There is no development at all, even the judgment is won… I feel that it is no use. Why is there no action taken against those policemen?”

Karuna had 49 cuts and bruises and when Elam saw the body, he broke down.

Pointing to his own body, Elam said: “It looked like he was hit by a weapon… you know, here, here and here, the leg also, here, how come they can cut all here if they didn’t do anything to him?”

Suhakam said police employed “brutal methods” to hasten their investigations. Investigating officers (IO) are under pressure to close their cases and would employ any means to achieve their key performance indicators (KPI). 

Eric Paulsen from Lawyers for Liberty said police brutality is a common occurrence in lock-ups.

“Take Karuna Nithi, for example. He had 49 injuries, (yet) the pathologist said he died from a fatty liver. Sugumar had curry powder smeared on his face, he was almost naked, beaten in public, but the pathologist said he had a heart attack. Kugan… bruises all over his body and very serious injuries. The first post-mortem said he died from fluid in the lungs, the second post-mortem said he was beaten to death,” Paulsen told The Malaysian Insight.

A. Kugan, 22, died because of police negligence on January 20, 2009, in the USJ Taipan police station.

C. Sugumar, 39, a security guard, also died because of police negligence on January 23, 2013 in Kajang.

Suara Rakyat Malaysia (Suaram) project coordinator Mohamad Alshatri said there was no accountability when it came to the safety of detainees.

“A lot of the time, this is not only the police, but also the hospitals that are not transparent when it comes to these things,” he said.

In the case of Karuna, Elam said, he was confused that his brother’s investigation did not follow procedures. “There was no protocol, no magistrate appointment, no bail also”.

Elam recalled telling the police not to touch his brother on that fateful night.

“The policeman said: ‘Kita tak ada buat benda macam ini’ (we don’t do such things) but the next night, this thing happened (Karuna was killed), what is this?” he said in anger.

Poorly maintained CCTV 

In Karuna’s case, the closed-circuit television (CCTV) footage was crucial to determine the direction of the case.

Elam said: “From the CCTV, I saw that my brother is just sitting down and all the detainees and policeman just started hitting my brother, other policemen who saw this just stood by and watched.”

Attorney-General Mohamed Apandi Ali, in an interview with The Malaysian Insight recently, said it was crucial for police to maintain their CCTV equipment to reduce the custodial death numbers.

“If you ask me, there are too many deaths this year already, CCTV functionality can help in reducing the number of custodial deaths,” Apandi said.

Suhakam found that most CCTVs installed in 13 lock-ups were not functioning because police personnel lacked training, funding shortfalls and bureaucracy.

“The biggest problem in the police lock-up is the maintenance of CCTVs. One because there is a lot of bureaucracy, so sometimes it will take up to two years just to do maintenance,” said Simon Karunagaram, a communications officer at Suhakam.

The other problem was the poor quality of the video footage, as CCTVs installed a few years ago in the lock-ups were of inferior quality. 

Solutions to the problem

The Suhakam report offered the following recommendations:

* The setting up of an Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission (IPCMC) to keep a check and balance on the police force.

 “If you talk about IPCMC, what assurance can you give that the same will not repeat, unless that agency is given power to enforce the recommendation,” Simon said.

* Setting up an independent medical base in lock-ups.

Simon said about 80% of deaths in police custody were attributed to health reasons, which was why setting up an independent medical base was crucial.

“Recently, we had a roundtable discussion with all the government agencies to follow up on our report. We presented our findings, so we hope the recommendation of inserting medical teams in the lock-ups will be carried out.

“Our recommendation was to send doctors to the central lock-ups first, like Jinjang.”

In the first quarter of 2017 alone, three police custodial deaths were recorded. S. Bala Murugan, 44, who died in the North Klang district police headquarters on February 7; Thanaseelan Muniandy, 43, who died in the Bukit Sentosa police station on February 25; and Soh Kai Chiok, 49, who died in the Bera district police headquarters on January 18. 

As for Elam, all he wants is justice for his family. “I want justice to be served, no amount of money can bring my brother back.”

Meanwhile, Suhakam said yesterday it was disturbed by the more than 600 deaths at immigration detention centres and jails over the last two years.

Its chairman, Razali Ismail, was reported by Reuters as saying that the government had “little interest in the human rights of detainees”, and that this attitude was “reflected in government budgetary priorities and the resources made available for the running and upkeep of all places of detention”.

Reuters had earlier reported that 118 foreigners, including undocumented workers, refugees and asylum seekers, had died at detention centres in the last two years. More than half the dead were from Myanmar. – April 5, 2017.