Another Indictment Against Police Will They Respond

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Every time news reports of the government or its employees being held liable for damage, injuries, or death through their actions or inaction, we sit back and say: “There we go again.”
Whether it is medical negligence, custodial deaths, or planned cheating or fraud in the case of land transfers, the government ends up paying millions in compensation due to the principle of vicarious liability.
Taxpayers cringe at the thought that their hard-earned money is being used to pay for the wrongdoing of a few.
The perpetrators walk free, perhaps with a tap on the wrist, or even promoted. No remorse, no apology, as they believe they did not wrong, thinking they were carrying out their lawful responsibilities as a servant of the government.
ADSBut yesterday’s decision by the High Court to award RM1.1 million in damages to the mother of Dutch model Ivana Esther Robert Smit, whose nude body was found on the sixth-floor balcony of a condominium here eight years ago, is nothing less than an indictment of our police force and the enforcement of law and order.
A clear rebuke
Court judgments are usually couched in legalese and sometimes diplomatic language, but yesterday, judge Roz Mawar Rozain was scathing in her impeachment of the police and described their conduct in a blunt, yet assertive rebuke.
Christina Carolina Gerarda Johanna Verstappen had sued the inspector-general of police (IGP), Dang Wangi investigating officer Faizal Abdullah, the home minister, and the Malaysian government for alleged breach of statutory duties and negligence in the investigation into the cause of her daughter’s death.
The judge ordered the defendants to pay RM500,000 in general damages, RM300,000 in aggravated damages, and RM300,000 in exemplary damages to Verstappen.
According to lawyers, aggravated damages are usually awarded, particularly when the defendant’s conduct during the wrongdoing or after caused additional distress or humiliation beyond the initial injury.
They are compensatory, aiming to address the emotional harm, such as loss of dignity or injury to feelings, that resulted from the defendant’s actions.
Punitive damages, also known as exemplary damages, are a type of monetary award granted to a plaintiff in a lawsuit, not to compensate for their losses, but to punish the defendant for egregious misconduct and deter similar actions in the future.
Breaches of duty, litany of failures
In her judgment, Roz Mawar ruled that there were breaches of the duty of care by the defendants and failures in crime scene management.
“There were evidence preservation failures. There was inadequate handling of witnesses and suspects. There was forensic evidence of neglect, and there was expert evidence of dismissal.
“The plaintiff is a direct victim, has suffered harm, and that harm suffered by the plaintiff is the direct and foreseeable consequence of the defendants’ breach of duty,” she said.
ADSThe court also found there was misfeasance in public office, which involves the improper performance of a lawful act.
It concluded that the investigation failed to employ advanced forensic methodologies that could have provided crucial temporal insights into the trauma suffered by the deceased.
Roz Mawar ordered the IGP to remove Faizal from the current task force investigating the case and the police to recommence the investigation relating to Smit’s death as per the 2019 High Court order.
Deceased Dutch model Ivana SmitThe judge noted that a specialised task force was established to investigate the case following a High Court order in 2019. Still, the court observed that the defendants failed to ensure the effective operation and accountability of this investigative mechanism.
Perhaps the quality, or the lack of it, in its investigations was examined by the court and hence, the damning remarks on the police.
“The death of an 18-year-old young woman under suspicious circumstances should have warranted the most thorough and professional investigation. Instead, the evidence reveals a litany of failures, incompetence, and disregard for proper procedure,” she said.
An unprofessional police force
What does it tell us about the police force? Their conduct amounted to negligence and reflected a grave dereliction of duty in handling a matter of profound public interest.
Like many cases before this, including the death of Teoh Beng Hock, the case was closed despite the Court of Appeal unanimously overturning the Coroners’ Court’s open verdict, concluding that his death was not due to suicide.
The judgment stated that “a person or persons were responsible for his death.”
In May, the Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC) directed that no further action (NFA) be taken in connection with Teoh’s death, which occurred on July 16, 2009, outside a fifth-floor corridor of Plaza Masalam in Shah Alam, Selangor.
It said the decision was made after reviewing and studying all the evidence in the investigation papers submitted by the police.
Ditto for the case of Muslim preachers Zamri Vinoth and Firdaus Wong, who were reported for insulting religion, but were not prosecuted because the police classified their cases as “NFA”.
Zamri Vinoth (left) and Firdaus WongAppearing on behalf of the AGC, deputy public prosecutor Ainul Amirah said the AGC was unwilling to prosecute Perlis-based preacher Zamri and Multiracial Reverted Muslims founder and president Firdaus, as police had classified their cases as “NFA”.
Before that, there was the case of a shooting in Rawang, and in 2022, coroner Rasyihah Ghazali ruled there was a criminal element in the case and that there was an abuse of power by the authorities in the fatal shooting of G Thavaselvan, 31, S Mahendran, 23, and Sri Lankan national J Vijayaratnam, 40.
Two weeks ago, the AGC repeated the same mantra - “insufficient evidence” - to prosecute the same preachers in yet another case, despite hundreds of police reports.
To say the police must buck up is like pouring water on a duck’s back. I have said it several times before in a series of commentaries on police conduct.
More recently, after the high-profile cases of Yusoff Rawther, who was previously a research assistant in Anwar Ibrahim’s office before he assumed the post of prime minister, and Muar MP Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman, I wrote: “It was a mocking indictment of the police and the officers involved (in Yusoff’s case). This raised questions about the conduct of the police and their methodology in the investigation process.”
What happens when the IGP and other senior officers turn up for work today? The court may have made the orders, but what happens next?
Will we have an update on developments and progress reports, or will the documents continue to gather more dust in the steel cupboards in Bukit Aman?
We wait with bated breath. - Mkini
R NADESWARAN is a veteran journalist and goes back to the title of his commentary he wrote two years ago: “For the police to fly, what weighs it down must go.” Comments: [email protected]
The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.

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