PARLIAMENT | RSN Rayer (Harapan-Jelutong) today added more pressure to calls for arrests to be made after more than a month since the Attorney-General’s Chambers reclassification of the fatal shootings of three suspected robbers in Durian Tunggal as a murder case.
In his debate of the royal address in Dewan Rakyat, Rayer directed his question at Home Minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail.
“I would like to ask the home minister why the parties involved have not yet been arrested and charged with murder?
“Today, we see that this incident is still under investigation, and the forensic team is still waiting to obtain the bullet casings to confirm who actually fired the shots,” he said.
Saifuddin, in a parliamentary written reply to Takiyuddin Hassan (PN-Kota Bharu), yesterday said investigations surrounding the shootings last November are ongoing, with police awaiting forensic and ballistic reports.
Saifuddin also said police referred its investigation papers to the AGC twice, first on Dec 16 and again on Dec 29, 13 days after the case was reclassified as murder under Section 302 of the Penal Code.
Why suspects not detained?
In a separate statement, lawyers for the families of the three victims, Rajesh Nagarajan, said Saifuddin’s response did not address the central legal issue arising from the Durian Tunggal shooting.
“In a standard Section 302 investigation, suspects are detained to facilitate investigation, preserve evidence, and ensure accountability.
“The absence of these measures in this case is without explanation,” he said.
“The existence of pending forensic or ballistic reports does not suspend the application of ordinary criminal procedure, nor does it justify differential treatment of suspects.
“Forensic analysis is an evidentiary tool. It is not a condition precedent to arrest, nor a substitute for custodial investigation,” Rajesh stated, adding that to suggest otherwise risks creating an exception to the law in cases where police use lethal force.
On Nov 24, the police shot and killed the men, aged between 24 and 29, after one of them allegedly used a machete to attack a police officer in an oil palm plantation in Durian Tunggal.
Malacca police chief Dzulkhair Mukhtar had defended his team’s actions, alleging that the incident caused a corporal, in his early 30s, to suffer severe injuries to his left arm. - Mkini
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