00:10Hi, welcome back to Consider This. I'm Melissa Idris. Let's continue our look into the human
00:16rights violations that happened during and after an incident at Taipei Prison on the 17th of January
00:23in 2025 which involved the use of excessive force against over a hundred inmates and directly
00:31resulted in the death of Gan Chin Eng who was a High Court detainee. Now joining me on the show
00:37today is Sashi Devon who is Director of Suwaram and also a lawyer representing the families of
00:44the detainees. Sashi, thank you so much for being back on the show. It's good to have you back.
00:48Can you first begin by telling me your response? You've read the Suhakam Inquiry Report. You were
00:54part of the Observer for Suwaram. So what has been your response to the Public Inquiry Report?
01:02Thank you Melissa. Thank you for having me again. Now firstly, we were part of the observing team
01:11for the family members at Suwaram was of course present because it was a public inquiry but
01:18we were representing the family members in that capacity. But with regards to the report, the
01:25inquiry report, now it has provided a comprehensive coverage of the systemic human rights violations.
01:33The report heavily accounted for and adopted the extensive submissions presented by us as
01:41Council for the family and the Malaysian Bar which covered misuse of weapons, leadership failures,
01:49dilapidated infrastructure among others. Now we, I must say, we must look into or try to understand the
01:58prison department's submissions, Melissa. Now they have from the beginning taken a very objective approach,
02:08I must say, and they in fact in their submissions conceded the use of false and inhumane treatment by
02:14its officers. That has been their position from the get-go. However, Suhakam called the incident for
02:22what it was. It was in fact torture and ill treatment and we cannot couch it in any other
02:31terms. It is torture and ill treatment. Now the report contains textual descriptions of the torture that
02:38was depicted in the CCTV footage. Now having watched in horror the footage of the incident during the
02:45inquiry, I have to say that what took place was nothing short of barbaric. Now I believe that it was
02:53a public
02:54inquiry, Melissa, but the CCTV footage was not made public. I must mention that it was never made public.
03:03Perhaps the panel had good reasons for not making it public and although my position or the position of
03:13family council has always been that we should make it public, I then left it to the wisdom of the
03:20panel to
03:21not make it public. But then during the inquiry, the observers and the panel, we had sight of or we
03:29were
03:29able to view what had actually taken place. Now in the current context where the CCTV footage remains
03:39withheld from public, the descriptions that were given in the report are vital because it gives the
03:45public a clear sense of the skill and brutality of the violence that actually took place in Taiping prison
03:52that day. In the case of the deceased, Mr Gan Jin Eng, we call him affectionately, we call him Uncle
04:00Gan, right?
04:01So Uncle Gan, he was shoved, beaten with the chota. What we refer to as the chota is actually a
04:09beaten
04:09person and kicked while exiting this hall. Now, this description is crucial in giving significance to
04:18understand what this old man went through during the incident that led to his unfortunate death.
04:26Now, I would have preferred, in terms of betterment of the report, I would have preferred for Suha come to
04:33take the view
04:34that Uncle Gan had actually passed away even before he left the prison grounds.
04:39Now, the severity of injuries from the assault, compounded by the protected delay in access to
04:45medical treatment and medical incompetence, played a significant role in contributing or expediting
04:52Uncle Gan's death. Now, we, the lawyers for the family, we are firmly of the opinion, Melissa,
04:58that Uncle Gan did not die in the hospital. He actually passed on within the compounds of the
05:06prison. On a balance of probabilities and the way in which the prison staff were giving unreliable
05:14evidence, it may appear that Uncle Gan had already succumbed to his injuries at the prison entrance itself
05:21while waiting to be taken to the hospital. We must remember, the ambulance never came. They actually
05:29had to take Uncle Gan to hospital via a prison van that arrived 30 minutes, 35 minutes later actually.
05:35So, um, another glaring omission is that the officer who was charged for, um, uh, in court for, um,
05:50sorry, um, the officer was charged for, uh, not murder but causing homicide, culpable homicide,
05:58amounting to murder. Um, he was the only, not amounting to murder, sorry, not amounting to murder,
06:03he was the only individual who was charged. And, uh, he was not produced as a witness at the inquiry.
06:10But this, the report does not cover. The individual who was subsequently charged in court was never
06:17produced at the inquiry. Now, this means that during the Suhaqam's investigation, they, while they may have
06:26identified this individual, Mr. Ryan D. O'Neill Victor as one of the witnesses, Suhaqam did not find that
06:36witness to be material enough to be produced, um, in the course of the inquiry. However, PDRM, through its
06:44investigations, found that he was the sole cause or the sole, uh, uh, individual that caused, may have
06:53caused Uncle Gunn's death. Okay. Okay. Sashi, how do you make sense of this discrepancy? What is,
06:59what is your hypothesis? What do you think is behind it? Well, um, to put it simply, I feel that,
07:05um,
07:06someone had to take the fall. They had to, uh, uh, some action had to be taken and they chose
07:12someone
07:13who was junior, um, who's not, uh, a resident in Semenanjung and basically charged the individual.
07:20Are we saying that after what we, what we have read from the report, we have seen almost 50 to
07:2760
07:28officers who have perpetrated this horrific, uh, uh, uh, conduct and only one individual was charged
07:36for Uncle Gunn's death? What happened to the other, uh, uh, offenses that may have, uh, that the other
07:43officers may have committed under Section 323 for causing harm, causing grievous harm, uh, uh, causing injury
07:50with weapons. What about all that? Nothing, zero investigation on, or they, uh, in the inquiry,
07:56we learned that some investigation did take place, but no one was charged for those offenses. We also
08:02learned that no disciplinary action was taken against any one of them in the cause of the inquiry. So
08:09where does that leave this one individual from nowhere, plucked out of nowhere, never called during
08:15the inquiry, suddenly ends up being charged in court. Is this, uh, could we then properly refer to him as
08:23a scapegoat? It's a question because I don't know. We must accord the presumption of innocence. Um, and he
08:31must be able to mount his defense. Right. What, what then, uh, uh, what can I say then of, uh,
08:39Swakam's
08:39investigation that led to the inquiry and that of PDRN? Were there any form of interference? These are
08:45questions that, um, that have not really been, uh, addressed. So, so now I have to ask you what it
08:52is
08:53you'd like to see happen next. Okay. All right. With regards to actions, um, firstly, uh, I, I would
09:02like to inform that Uncle Gun's family, we have filed, uh, a pretrial discovery application, uh, to request
09:09for, uh, the CCTV recording. Now, of course, in the application, we are saying that, um, we are not asking
09:17for it to be viewed in public or to be shown to the public, but we are asking that in
09:23the hopes of
09:24accountability, we will, we are permitted to screen the recording to key stakeholders, such as members
09:29of parliament, civil society groups, and the, uh, for the Malaysian part to actually have a copy
09:36so that we can now go to parliament and lobby the parliamentarians to seek for, um, many things.
09:44Number one, we want timelines. We want the government to tell us for all the recommendations that have
09:51been stated in the SOACAM report. What are the actions that you're going to take and what are
09:55the timelines that you're going to complete these, uh, uh, actions? How are you going to improve the
10:02system? Because what has happened here is a systemic failure that has led to the torture and ill treatment.
10:09Then the government should immediately ratify the UNCAD, the United Nations Convention Against
10:15Torture and Other Cruel, Inhumane and Degrading Treatment. That is something that has to be done
10:20immediately. Uh, this is something that SWARAM has been, uh, uh, seeking for years now, but, uh, the
10:28government has not come to it yet, but I hope that this incident and the SWACAM report, which is really
10:34comprehensive, actually brings to light the need for the immediate ratification. Now, with the
10:42parliamentary seating schedule from, if I'm not mistaken, it's sometime in June, between June and
10:46July, mid June to July, the public has a vital window to build public pressure for reform. Now, reach out
10:55to their local MP demand that they raise questions in parliament, uh, uh, liars with key stakeholders,
11:03um, mainly, uh, the whole ministry and the prime minister. We've always been trying to speak
11:08directly to the prime minister to tell him that, you know, things have to, to move on, on matters,
11:14urgent matters such as this. And, um, yes, we would also like to ask for, uh, the status of the
11:22disciplinary actions and the criminal actions to be, uh, taken more seriously. We would ask the,
11:30uh, well, members of parliament to inquire into the status of the investigations of the others,
11:38the other officers who were involved in all of this. Now, I want to say the other officers who were
11:44involved, they were senior officers, senior, uh, uh, officers of, uh, the prison's department who need to
11:52be held accountable to. All right. Sashi, thank you so much for being on the show with me today.
11:56I appreciate your time. Unfortunately, we've ran out of time. That was Sashi Devon from Suwaram
12:00wrapping up this episode of Consider This. I'm Melissa Idris, signing off for the evening.
12:04Thank you so much for watching and good night.
12:16We'll see you then.
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