Thursday November 2, 2006
Is negligence an excuse?
WHETHER a person is a criminal or not, can negligence be accepted as a valid reason for his death in a lock-up? How do you tell the parents that their son died due to the negligence of others?
Berita Harian journalist M. Thillinadan posed these questions in an article yesterday.
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Siva: ‘The police station is supposed to be one of the safest places’ |
It could have been a valid excuse, he said, if the case was the first of a detainee committing suicide using a piece of cloth that was left in the lock-up.
“But we remember S. Henry, 18, who hanged himself at the Simpang Renggam detention centre some years ago,” he wrote.
“Our memory is still fresh of how two other detainees also hanged themselves last July – one at the Sungai Petani prison and the other at the Tikam Batu police lock-up.”
The article noted that the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam) inquiry found an element of negligence in Henry’s death.
Commissioner Datuk N. Siva Subramaniam said this would also be the case in Suresh’s case if he had indeed hanged himself using a piece of cloth left in the lock-up – just like Henry.
“Carelessness cannot be an excuse to explain the death of a detainee in the lock-up. The police station is supposed to be one of the safest places,” he had said.
The article also questioned why there was no camera at the Bukit Sentosa lock-up, and said Selangor police chief Datuk Ismail Omar’s explanation that this was because there was no detainee there for about a month had raised a lot of speculation.
Thillinadan said the only solace for Suresh’s family now was the assurances by Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Musa Hassan and Ismail that police would investigate in a fair and transparent manner, and act against those responsible.
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