PETALING JAYA, April 13 — Suhakam has called for the setting up of an independent body to investigate a policeman’s alleged sexual abuse of three teenagers at the Jinjang centralised police lockup in Kuala Lumpur over the weekend.
Its vice-president Datuk Dr Khaw Lake Tee said the body should investigate the matter as a neutral entity.
“We do not want a perception there could be a cover-up. Thankfully, there is CCTV footage pertaining to the incident,” she said in George Town.
Amnesty International Malaysia executive director K. Shamini Darshini said the Independent Police Misconduct and Complaints Commission (IPCMC), which was proposed in 2005 but later rejected, would have been the ideal body.
“Lately, there have been numerous incidents pertaining to torture and custodial death. They had tried to push for the IPCMC to be formed to investigate it and this incident could be investigated as well if an independent body was not formed to do so,” she said.Lawyers for Liberty executive director Eric Paulsen said the incident could have been prevented if the standard operating procedures governing detainees had been followed.
He said female officers should be assigned to guard lockups as they would be less prone to abusing detainees.
Voice of Children chairman Sharmila Sekaran said here the incident should prompt a review of procedures to protect minors under detention.
“Besides police, child protection officers should ensure minimal detention of children, and magistrates need to query if detention periods are too long,” she said.
Sharmila said children should only be “handled” by specific police officers trained in child rights.“The jurisdiction of D11 (sexual crimes, domestic violence and child abuse investigations division) should be expanded to include protection of children who have broken the law instead of only victims,” she said.
“It should be standard operating procedure that children should only be interviewed by a trained and independent child advocate, which we have long asked for.”
Sharmila said the IPCMC would have helped in the Jinjang incident.
Protect and Save the Children president Datin Che Nariza Hajjar Hashim said there should be better coordination between police and the welfare department relating to arrests of children.
She said this was to ensure they received counselling, assistance and access to rehabilitation programmes.“Besides that, police can also work at national level to adopt a ‘school-police response protocol’ to strengthen the child protection system,” she said.
Malaysian Crime Prevention Foundation vice-chairman Tan Sri Lee Lam Thye said the alleged incident had called into question the effectiveness of the RM3.5 million SMART monitoring system at lockups.
“The system should also be reviewed besides investigations into whether standard operating procedures were adhered to,” Lee said.MALAY MAIL
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