WHY ROYAL COMMISSION OF INQUIRY A MUST

ARCHIVES 2009

By adminK On Jul 19, 2009

By Gobind Singh

There are two ways in which a public inquiry may be held over the circumstances leading to the death of Teoh Beng Hock.

As already suggested, the setting up of a Royal Commission of Inquiry would go a long way in finding ways and means by which incidents like these are no more in future. Its terms and reference should be cast wide. It should look into things like the interrogation techniques used, the time and conditions under which a person may be interrogated.

Second, we should be looking the places where interrogations take place. There should be CCTV camera’s placed there and the footage of these recordings must be made available to those interrogated upon request.

I have done a case in which a restaurant owner was taken to a police station in Johor where he was beaten whilst tied up and then he was hung upside down from an iron bar, his pants removed and chemical liquid poured onto his private parts in the course of interrogations. The defendants denied it. We won the case. The prosecution did not appeal. A video would have helped indeed.

I am currently doing a case in which a young girl was allegedly raped in an interrogation room in a police station early one morning by a policeman in uniform. Again the defendant denies it. He claims it was consensual. A 17 year old girl. In a police station. At 5am. Consensual. A video would help.

And of course, we have the case of A.Kugan where a suspect was beaten to death in police custody. Gani Patail is not very sure of what to do. A video would help him.