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Wednesday, June 19, 2013

3 steps to curb custodial deaths

The government will establish permanent coroner courts and central lockups at each state while pledging to study the possibility of giving prosecution power to EAIC.
PETALING JAYA: The government will set up permanent coroner courts, establish central police lockups and strengthen the Enforcement Agency Integrity Commission immediately in an attempt to curb custodial deaths.
At a joint press conference with two other ministers today, Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said that the central lockups would be equipped with closed-circuit television (CCTV), while bigger states might have more than one of this lockups.
“The police would only be allowed to conduct interrogations in the central lockups, and not in the police station,” he said.
He added that the some of the police standard operating procedures (SOP) would be amended in accordance to the changes.
He said this initiative would cost RM35 million, and some of the existing structures would be refurbished and converted to central lockups.
The government’s announcement came hot on the heels of public outcry over four deaths in police custody within 18 days.
This began with the death of N Dhamendran in KL on May 22, and followed by R Jamesh Ramesh in Penang on May 26, P Karunanithi in Negeri Sembilan on June 1 and Japanese national Nobuhiro Matsushita in Selangor on June 8.
Minister in the Prime Minister Department Nancy Shukri said permanent coroners would be “immediately” appointed in each state from among the current pool of magistrates and would be assisted by forensic experts.
A coroner plays the role of confirming the death of an individual within a jurisdiction and may order a probe into the cause of such death. Currently a coroner is only appointed on case basis.
Nancy said the government would first implement this in the Federal Territories and Selangor because there were custodial deaths in the two states recently.
Prosecution powers
Meanwhile, Minister in the Prime Minister Department Paul Low said the government will study measures to beef up the Enforcement Agency Integrity Commission (EAIC), including providing it with prosecution power.
“Currently it doesn’t have prosecution power but we are looking into it,” said the minister in charge of integrity and governance.
EAIC has come under intense criticism for being a toothless tigers due to its failure to prevent police misconducts and to bring the culprits to book.
He said there are already sufficient provisions for EAIC to function properly, and he is now looking at ways to allocate more resources to make it more efficient.

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