Families of murdered boys have gotten payment, but still denied justice

 

When the news broke earlier in the week that the families of three boys shot dead by police nearly 11 years ago were awarded over RM1.5 million in damages by the Shah Alam High Court, the feeling was bittersweet once again.

Yes, on the one hand, there was an appalling miscarriage of justice that had been recognised by the courts after Muhammad Shamil Hafiz Shapiei, 15, Mohd Hairul Nizam Tuah, 22, and Muhammad Hanafi Omar, 21, had been shot dead by police at Glenmarie, Shah Alam, on Nov 13, 2010

On Sept 1, 2016, the Court of Appeal had granted judgment in favour of the families, ruling that the victims were illegally shot dead by the police. In last week’s decision delivered online to parties, judge Khadijah Idris awarded damages of RM1,519,200 to the families of the three victims.

But when I thought of the magnitude of the crime, I was upset and contacted lawyer N Surendran, who acted for the families. His words reminded me of just how shocking but commonplace a crime had unfolded.

The police initially claimed that the youths were armed with machetes and had tried to attack them after earlier robbing petrol kiosks in Monteres and Bukit Subang, and that they had to open fire.

“But the post-mortem showed that the angle of entry bullets, number of bullets fired and the distance they were fired from all negated the police’s version of events.

“The post-mortem made it very clear that the police version was not true and what had happened was that the boys were made to kneel, their shirts were pulled over their heads, and they were executed on the spot.

“The bullet entry wound on Shamil was at a 45-degree angle, thus proving that he must have been kneeling. There was also gunshot residue on the shirts showing the bullets were fired from close range,” Surendran told me.

Isn’t that absolutely chilling? The only logical conclusion from this evidence is that the police had committed murder and had gotten away with it. Sure the payout is some measure of recognition of the responsibility of the police force and the suffering of the families – but what of the perpetrators? Where are they? Transferred? Promoted even?

And by the way, the sum is being paid with taxpayers' money, I presume?

I noted that a small minority of social media commenters had said: “If you commit crimes with parangs, what do you expect?” Surely these people are missing the point. Considering that the police did the fatal shootings, isn’t it a possibility (or a likelihood) that they concocted the story and planted the weapons?

I remember being on duty at The Star’s newsdesk when teenager Aminulrasyid Amzah was fatally shot after taking his sister’s car for a joyride in April 2010, just six months before the Glenmarie killings.

One of the first statements released was that he was found with a machete – how else to explain why he had been shot at more than 20 times? If you’re not familiar with the case, the teen panicked after denting another car and didn’t stop at a roadblock. Deserving of being shot to death? Surely not.

Incidentally, the machete SOP (if I may call it that) is precisely why I would support a complete ban on the death penalty in Malaysia at the moment – there is very little reason to trust the evidence gathering process if weapons can be planted and confessions can be beaten out of suspects.

Speaking on the Aminulrasyid case, Surendran recalled that (Corporal) Jenain Subi was initially convicted but subsequently had his conviction overturned, so to his knowledge, no one has been held accountable in a criminal court.

Not just for the Glenmarie shootings or Aminulrasyid, but for all cases.

Just imagine that. No one.

According to Suaram statistics (see table above) for the calendar year 2020, there were 19 cases of police shootings involving 24 people with 10 deaths and 3 injuries. And mind you, most of the country was in lockdown then.

So when you scroll back through the years, the cases are manifold. In Sept 2019, A 7km-chase of four people by the police from Batu Caves to Batu ended in a shootout, in which three suspected robbers were killed, while a woman went missing.

The dead included Janarthanan Vijayaratnam, of Sri Lankan Tamil origin, who held a UK permanent resident status.

As far back as 1993, a police raid on Bentong Kali resulted in the death of an innocent neighbour who happened to be pregnant at the time.

We don’t even need to have the Independent Police Complaints of Misconduct Commission (IPCMC) for this as Section 337 of the Criminal Procedure Code allows for a magistrate to hold an inquiry into when, where, how and after what manner the deceased came by his death and also whether any person is criminally concerned in the cause of the death.

In theory, our law gives the police the power to arrest and not to kill, and yet, today is one more day in which the wheels of justice were not just exceedingly slow, but have ground to a complete halt. - Mkini

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MARTIN VENGADESAN is an associate editor at Malaysiakini.