Noorizwan is dead, not hurt: LFL schools CID chief on the distinction

 

Bukit Aman CID director M Kumar has received a lesson in the law on the distinction between a person who is injured but alive and one who is no longer breathing.

Lawyers for Liberty (LFL) director Rania Aljunied argued that the police should investigate the death of detainee Noorizwan Zulkefly under Section 302 of the Penal Code, which deals with murder.

She was responding to Kumar’s statement that the death was being investigated under Section 331, which concerns voluntarily causing grievous hurt to extort a confession.

“Firstly, Section 331 is an offence of hurt. Noorizwan is dead,” she said in a statement.

Rania (above) argued that when injuries voluntarily inflicted result in death, the offence can no longer be treated merely as one of hurt, adding that the circumstances warrant investigation under Section 302.

“The classification of an investigation must reflect the harm that actually resulted.

“Investigating a death as ‘grievous hurt’ treats a man who has been killed as if he had survived,” she added.

To underscore what she sees as a glaring inconsistency in the application of the law, Rania drew a comparison with fatal drink-driving cases, in which motorists have faced murder charges.

Bukit Aman Criminal Investigation Department director M Kumar

“How is it that a drunk driver accidentally killing a road user is murder, but (alleged) deliberate and severe beatings inflicted by police upon a detainee causing death is not murder?

“No reasonable person would agree that the horrific injury suffered by Noorizwan and his consequent death deserves a lesser charge than that of a drunk driver killing a road user.

“The law must be applied fairly and proportionately. To do otherwise would be contrary to the rule of law,” she stressed.

Police making assumptions?

Rania noted that Section 331 carries a maximum prison sentence of 10 years, which she argued was no measure of accountability for a death allegedly caused by deliberate violence.

She also said Bukit Aman’s choice of offence was telling since Section 331 itself presupposes that grievous hurt was voluntarily inflicted.

In other words, the police are already proceeding on the basis that someone deliberately caused the injuries, she noted.

“This is totally unacceptable to the family. The only acceptable classification is murder under Section 302. Anything less is a failure of justice, and the family will never accept it,” she added.

Yesterday, Malaysiakini reported Kumar as saying that the decision to classify the case under Section 331 followed a statement recorded from a forensic medical consultant at Hospital Canselor Tuanku Muhriz, who conducted the post-mortem and confirmed external injuries on several parts of Noorizwan’s body.

Kumar said the pattern of injuries was consistent with blunt-force trauma and was not self-inflicted.

21 injuries allegedly found on Noorizwan's body

"However, the complete post-mortem report confirming the cause of death has yet to be obtained, and the police are awaiting further information from the hospital regarding this matter," he added.

Focus on central issue

However, Rania argued that the outstanding report would not alter the central issue that blunt-force trauma caused Noorizwan’s death.

She said toxicology tests and examinations of blood and other samples could establish whether additional factors had contributed to the death, but would not displace that finding.

“They cannot displace the pathologist’s finding that blunt force trauma caused death.

“An investigation can always be reclassified later, but a classification that understates the offence from the start shapes how it is conducted, which officers are treated as suspects, and what is preserved,” she added.

On behalf of Noorizwan’s family, LFL called on Inspector-General of Police Khalid Ismail to reclassify the case and investigate the death as murder.

Rania also criticised the attorney-general’s continued silence, urging him to intervene to ensure the investigation follows the evidence and the relevant provisions of the law.

“Meanwhile, the attorney-general's continued silence is disappointing. We urge him to intervene to ensure that the investigation proceeds in accordance with the facts and evidence of the case and the proper provisions of the law.

“Noorizwan did not survive his injuries. The investigation must reflect that,” Rania said. - Mkini