(Speech at the launching of the Rejang Park Operation Centre of the DAP Sibu by-election campaign on Friday, 7th May 2010)
Borneo Post carries the headline today: “Drop in crime index for first four months” . However, it does not give Malaysians any accompanying assurance of greater safety and security whether in the streets, public places or privacy of their home since the beginning of the year as illustrated by two recent episodes:
• The charade of the Selangor police chief’s official car being stolen; and
• The trigger-happy police shooting and killing of 14-year-old Form III student Aminulrasyid Amzah some 100 metres from his Shah Alam house 12 days ago at 2 am on April 26, 2010 whose only offence is underaged and unlicensed driving to watch the football match Chelsea vs Stokes at the neighbourhood mamak stall with his friends.
All Malaysians, regardless of race, religion or region, whether in Sibu, Kuching, Miri, Kota Kinabalu, Sandakan, Tawau or all over Peninsular Malaysia feel outraged by the senseless killing of Aminulrasyid and the ham-fisted handling of the heinous killing by the police and government authorities simply because we are 1Malaysia even before Datuk Seri Najib Razak promoted the idea when he became Prime Minister a year ago.
Two days ago, the Police questioned the key witness in the police shooting of Aminulrasyid, his friend who was eye-witness to the police killing as he was in the car that fateful morning, Azamuddin Omar 15, for the third time.
This is a most disgraceful and unprofessional example of police investigations of the Aminulrasyid shooting death as in all the three police questioning sessions, Azamuddin had consistently stuck to his version of events as given in his police report the very same day of the tragedy.
When DAP Secretary-General and Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng and I visited Aminulrasyid’s bereaved family in their Shah Alam house on Wednesday, 28th April on our return from Sibu, I was given a copy of the police report which Azamuddin had lodged at the Section 11 Shah Alam Police Station on 26th April 2010.
I still have a copy of the police report with me and I have re-read it, and found that Azamuddin has fully and consistently stuck to the very same version of events he had given to the Police in his first report despite the trauma he went through from seeing his friend killed with a bullet at the back of the head.
Why is it necessary to subject the 15-year-old student to three questionings over the very same version of events if the Police investigators had been responsible, thorough and professional?
Such unprofessional police conduct on top of a heap of most disgraceful conduct by the Police, especially the Inspector-General of Police and the Selangor Chief Police Officer, and the Ministerial authorities whether the Home Minister, Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein or Deputy Home Minister, Datuk Abu Seman Yusop do not inspire confidence that we have an efficient and professional world-class police force or Home Ministry.
The Prime Minister must realize that the grave crisis of confidence in the police and the government over the police killing of Aminulrasyid is not an inherited problem from previous administrations but solely the responsibility of his administration – and the only satisfactory and accountable solution must be a Royal Commission of Inquiry and not a PR “public circus” like the Abu Seman Special Panel.