The family of firefighter Muhammad Adib Mohd Kassim have said they are against the Inspector-General of Police Abdul Hamid Bador’s proposal to form a new task force to re-examine all aspects of the firefighter’s death.

“It should be stressed here that the Coroner’s Court has already given its findings on the cause and reasons behind Adib’s death.

“Seeing as the decision has never been challenged by any party through the appeal process or legitimate checks, it is the police’s responsibility to investigate who were the 'two or more individuals' who caused Adib’s death, and not to question again the cause of death, whether he was killed or not as it has been decided by the court.

“As such, we strongly reject any need to re-investigate the cause of the death through a ‘review taskforce’,” the family said through their lawyers in a statement today.

The IGP had mooted the idea of forming a review taskforce yesterday to re-investigate all aspects of Adib’s death and said that the task force will focus on the witnesses.

He said the police will suggest forming this task force to the Home Affairs Ministry as there were conflicting opinions from two pathologists who had performed post-mortems on Adib.

The police had also recalled 31 witnesses from the inquest and as many as 52 new witnesses have had their testimonies taken, Hamid (photo) said.

The IGP said so far, there was not a single witness who could tell the police that they saw Adib being beaten up during the riot.

However, Adib’s family denied that the police had recalled all 31 witnesses from the inquest as Adib’s father was never called in by the police to get his statement taken as well as several other main witnesses.

“This shows the lackadaisical attitude in carrying out the investigation and instead provides an excuse that they had so-called met a dead end, lying that they have so-called exhausted all means without truly expending efforts to get justice for Adib,” they said.

The family also said it is not fair for the IGP to say there are no witnesses who could verify Adib was killed, and for him to say Adib was not attacked merely because he had no self-defence injuries.

They said these claims have been addressed clearly during last year’s inquest.

By bringing up these issues, the family claimed that this shows the police have not examined or does not understand the chronology of the case based on the existing statements and evidence.

Adib died at the National Heart Institute on Dec 17, 2018, after succumbing to injuries sustained during riots near the Seafield Sri Maha Mariamman Temple in Subang Jaya about a month earlier.

On Sept 27 last year, coroner Rofiah Mohamad in delivering her ruling had attributed Adib’s death to a criminal act perpetrated by two or three unidentified assailants.

The court had also accepted former UKM Hospital head of forensics Dr Shahrom Abdul Wahid's theory that the firefighter sustained fatal injuries when he was crushed between a Fire and Rescue Department vehicle's door and the chassis.

It concluded that the vehicle's door had slammed into Adib several times as the assailants had kicked the door repeatedly.

Rofiah also said that based on testimonies and evidence presented by witnesses, including N Suresh, the court had established that some 20 to 30 people had assaulted the victim.

Following the ruling of the Coroner's Court, which proceedings were aimed at establishing the cause of Adib's death, among others, police had reopened its investigation into the incident as a murder probe. - Mkini