The Kugan Case,Malaysia - Justin Santiago
“Don’t regard criminals as heroes.” – Syed Hamid Albar, Home Minister, January 28, 2009.
Syed Hamid Albar was referring to Kugan, who had died in police custody after being charged with car theft. A person in police custody is a suspect not a criminal. In law a person has to be proven guilty of a crime to be judged a criminal. This process of proving someone guilty is conducted through the court system. Kugan was a suspect and not a criminal.
In fact Kugan was clearly a victim of some really hard hits to his body suffered while under police detention. The police who were suspected of the crime have not been charged let alone detained.
About Me
- Justin Santiago
- Justin Santiago, BAppSc (Hons), MBA, LLB (Hons) comes from a journalism, market research, intellectual property and strategic communications consulting background. Now based in Melbourne he spends his time advising businesses on how to communicate to their customers as well as writing on various subjects of interest in this blog.
In this part of the world, habeus corpus is just a romantic theory.In practise it doesn't apply.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, you're presumed guilty until proven innocent.
Simple example: Criminal Suspect are often led away in handcuffs, even though they don't resist arrest and are willing to co-operate.
It makes a mockery out of PACE 1984 and the entire Law of Evidence.