Shooting incident: Driver denies ramming policemen

The driver of the vehicle involved in a fatal shooting said he was also assaulted by the police during his three-day interrogation.

KLANG: The driver of a car involved in a police shooting denied that he rammed into the policemen. In the shooting incident on Jan 18 in Taman Sentosa, here, a 22 year-old housewife Pua Bee Chua was killed.

Song Chee Chai, 31, claimed that he merely increased the speed of his vehicle after he realised he was followed by a police car.

Speaking on behalf of Song at a press conference today, DAP Federal Territories secretary Lim Lip Eng said the police gave a 10km chase before they arrived at Taman Sentosa, the scene where police opened fire.

“My client claimed that he slowed down after coming across a van, then the police started firing at the back of his car without issuing any warning,” he said.

Though it was reported that the police had fired at least 22 shots in the Jan 18 incident, Song alleged that 40 shots were fired though a machine gun, one of which hit Pua and caused her death.

Lim, who is also the Segambut MP, said the police was suspicious of Song’s car because it carried a fake number plate.

Song was subsequently remanded by the police for three days and pleaded guilty to charges of stolen vehicle and possession of a pistol.

He is now serving a two-and-half year imprisonment in Kajang prison.

However, Song denied the third charge of possession of drugs as found by the police in the car, and the court in Klang is set to deliberate the case on Feb 27.

Lim met with Song in the Kajang prison earlier this week and saw an emotional Song who was still upset by Pua’s death.

‘Pua was innocent’

Lim said Song was merely fetching Pua to a sundry shop, and did not expect the outing would ended up in tragedy.

“He told me he wanted justice for the woman, she was innocent, she did nothing wrong,” Lim said.

Song also claimed that he was only interviewed once by the police over the shooting incident.

He also claimed he was brutally assaulted by the police from Klang in his three-day interrogation after the fatal shooting.

According to Lim, Song was assaulted for no apparent reason and still complained of chest pain .

Criticising the police for their alleged brutality and fatal shooting, Lim now demanded Inspector-General of Police Ismail Omar immediately disclose the police’s standard operating procedure (SOP) to the public.

“Members of public should have the right to understand when the police can open fire. Is it when they refuse to stop their vehicle when asked? Or is it when the police switch on the siren?” Lim said.

He claimed that Ismail had labelled the police’s SOP as classified information when the IGP was faced with public uproar over the police fatal shooting of 14-year-old Aminulrashid Amzah.

Citing the Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein’s oral answer to question in Parliament in June 2010, Lim said the former did not mention that the police SOP was classified information.

“SOP is a public document. Given that there were so many cases of police mishandling [suspects] recently, the police should disclosed their procedure so the public knows what to do in the future,” he said.

Pua is survived by her husband, a four-year-old daughter and a three-year-old son. The family has sought lawyers including Puchong MP Gobind Singh Deo for further assistance.