Making Kugan’s death matter

By Zedeck Siew (The Nut Graph)

What is criminal is that more often than not, those responsible for deaths in police custody get away, literally, with torture and murder. What then should be done to address deaths in custody? More importantly, why isn't anything being done?

THE fresh findings on what caused A Kugan's death while in police custody are horrific and outrageous. Politicians, civil society groups and citizens have all expressed shock and anger.

Unfortunately, Kugan's death is not an isolated incident. In February 2005, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, in his capacity as Internal Security Minister, revealed to the Dewan Rakyat that there were 159 deaths in custody between 1990 and 2004. And according to the Royal Commission on Police report, released in May 2005, only six out of the 80 deaths in custody between 2000 and 2004 were subject to inquests.

Coroners Act

Human rights group Suaram is echoing the recommendations of the Parliamentary Select Committee on the Penal Code and Criminal Procedure Code (CPC), which in 2006 called for a Coroners Act. Such legislation would establish a Coroners Court, and include provisions for the appointment of coroners, and inquest procedures.

"The existing CPC does not adequately lay out procedures on inquests into deaths in custody," Suaram's Tah Moon Hui says in an interview, citing the United Kingdom's Coroners Rules as a model.

"Ideally, the Coroners Act will make it compulsory for all deaths in custody to be investigated," Tah explains.

Such measures will directly address the problem of deaths in custody, as well as other sudden death cases, including police shootings and prison- or detention-centre related ones, Tah adds.

The Coroners Act may also assist in ensuring that gravely dishonest post-mortems, such as Kugan's first autopsy, will not happen in the future.

The initial autopsy, conducted by forensic pathologist Dr Abdul Karim at Serdang Hospital, suggested that Kugan had died from fluid accumulation in the lungs. The second post-mortem later proved that the body was beaten, starved and burnt.

Kugan's second autopsy results being announced on 3 March 2009

Such a revelation calls into question all previous post-mortems into deaths in custody. For example, the family of Samiyati Indrayani Zulkarnain Putra, who died at the Wangsa Maju Police Station on 12 Sept 2006, claimed that her body bore evidence of bruising. But her cause of death was attributed to asthma.

Indeed, many deaths in custody are officially linked to natural causes.

Read more at: http://www.thenutgraph.com/making-kugans-death-matter