File photo of relatives and friends mourning at Dharmendran’s funeral in Kuala Lumpur last month. The EAIC says it will now conduct an investigation into Dharmendran’s death in police custody.KUALA LUMPUR, June 6 — The Bar Council and human rights group Suaram pressed today for a police oversight body to be formed despite the Enforcement Agency Integrity Commission (EAIC) launching investigations yesterday on deaths in custody.
Bar Council president Christopher Leong insisted that the Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission (IPCMC) was necessary, pointing out that even if the EAIC were to be given disciplinary powers, it had too many enforcement agencies under its purview to be effective.
“What is required is a dedicated complaints and misconduct commission with respect to the police because the police are the biggest enforcement agency in the country,” Leong told The Malaysian Insider today.
The EAIC, which investigates complaints of misconduct against the police force and 18 other enforcement agencies, can only make recommendations to the disciplinary authority of the relevant enforcement agency upon completion of investigations.
“The police may or may not come to the same result of the EAIC investigations and therefore reject the EAIC’s recommendation,” said Leong.
The EAIC announced its maiden investigations yesterday into the custodial deaths involving N. Dharmendran and R. Jamesh Ramesh, both of whom died in police custody recently. The latter died on May 26 while detained at the Penang police contingent headquarters.
Three police officers were charged yesterday with Dhamendran’s murder, about two weeks after the 32-year-old former lorry driver was beaten to death on May 21 while under remand at the city police contingent headquarters here.
“The Bar welcomes and commends the Attorney-General on his decisive and swift action in bringing charges against the police officers,” said Leong.
Suaram co-ordinator R. Thevarajan similarly said the IPCMC was needed because of its disciplinary powers, besides criticising the EAIC for not taking the initiative to investigate previous deaths in custody.
“To build confidence of the people, they should be proactive,” Thevarajan toldThe Malaysian Insider today.
EAIC chief executive Nor Afizah Hanum Mokhtar said recently that the commission did not investigate previous death in custody cases because of a lack of manpower.
She noted that the EAIC has only one investigating officer and an annual budget of RM7 million.
DAP adviser Lim Kit Siang stressed today that the IPCMC was “more empowered” to deal with gross abuse of power in the police force.
“The very fact that the EAIC took so long to say it has powers shows that it has inhibitions,” Lim told The Malaysian Insider.
“Every case of a police death in custody must be investigated, whether it’s the EAIC or IPCMC or a public body,” added the Gelang Patah MP.
MIC strategic director S. Vell Paari also highlighted the EAIC’s “shortfalls”, such as its inability to impose disciplinary action on police officers found guilty of misconduct.
“If they say it’s got to be EAIC, how are you going to rectify the shortfalls? What are we going to do to boost the EAIC to give them similar powers? That’s what we want to discuss,” Vell Paari told The Malaysian Insider today.
Vell Paari said he and several NGOs would discuss the matter tonight before their meeting with Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Paul Low tomorrow.
Low told The Malaysian Insider last Tuesday that the IPCMC proposal would be discussed at the Cabinet meeting yesterday.
According to Suaram, there were over 220 cases of alleged deaths in custody in Malaysia from 2000 to May, with its records showing that nine of those cases occurred in 2012 while eight cases took place this year, including Dharmendran’s and Jamesh Ramesh’s deaths.
A United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention 2010 visit to Malaysian prisons and detention centres reported in 2011 that between 2003 and 2007, “over 1,500 people died while being held by authorities.”
The Malaysian Bar, civil society groups and several politicians from both sides of the divide have called for the IPCMC to be implemented to reform the police force since 2006.
The IPCMC, which was mooted by a royal commission chaired by former Chief Justice Tun Mohamed Dzaiddin Abdullah but shot down by the police, was to be modelled on the United Kingdom’s Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), as well as other police oversight bodies in New South Wales and Queensland in Australia, and Hong Kong.
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