The Cabinet yesterday belatedly expressed its distress and condolences to the family of Aminulrasyid Amzah, 14, who was killed by trigger-happy police about 100 metres from his Shah Alam house in the early hours (2 am) of Monday, April 26, 2010 when trying to flee home driving his sister’s car.

The first question that comes to mind for Malaysians is why the Cabinet did not express its distress and condolences at last Wednesday’s Cabinet meeting, which met more than 48 hours after the fatal shooting and killing of Aminulrasyid.

Is it because the Cabinet had relied on the first public account of the heinous police killing by the Selangor police chief Datuk Khalid Abu Bakar who said Aminulrasyid was shot dead “while reversing his car in an attempt to run over several policemen”, describing the Form III student as a “criminal”? Read the rest of this entry »

By KJ John | Malaysiakini

In Chinese culture, it is said that ‘the fish rots from the head’. Is the 5,000-year-old cultural saying wrong? If not, what is it that makes institutions become corrupt over time?

What has made civilisations themselves corrupt, leading to their extinction, such as that of Babylonia or Egypt? What has made the Christian culture and beliefs of the founding fathers of America become so corrupt that, today, secularism and liberalism drives much of the US agenda?

What will ensure that Malaysia, a nation only 53 years old, does not become corrupt like some noble civilisations of old?

Last week, I reflected on the question of whose authority we live under, on earth? I argued that we need to be accountable to both God and Man; to give each what the other does not deny.
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The late-night visit of the eight-man Special Panel headed by Deputy Home Minister Datuk Abu Seman Yusop to the Aminulrasyid murder site in Shah Alam yesterday was a circus, just a public relations (PR) show to assuage public outrage rather than substantive investigation and is therefore an insult to Aminul’s memory and the intelligence of concerned Malaysians.

I watched the 14.26 minute Malaysiakini video clip of the Special Panel’s visit and I am reminded of my visit, together with DAP Secretary-General and Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng to the bereaved Aminul family in Shah Alam Section 11, particularly the suffering mother Norsiah Mohamad last Wednesday, directly on touchdown from our flight returning from Sibu.

The video of businessman, Wah Rahim Tajuddin, whose house was the exact spot Aminulrasyid had finally crashed into, and whose son is a good friend of Aminulrasyid, showed him still very distraught emotionally when narrating to members of the Special Panel the events of the tragic early hours the previous Monday eight days ago.

At least Rahim did not break down and wept as he did when he recounted to me the shocking killing of Aminulrasyid which he did not know until the next morning, believing that the corpse he saw slumped head-down in the car was a criminal whom the police had killed.
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The Home Ministry is under great pressure. Because I have proposed a Tun Haniff Royal Commission of Inquiry into the police killing of 14-year-old Form III student Aminulrasyid Amzah in Shah Alam at 2 am the previous Monday, it has been announced that the former Inspector-General of Police Tun Hanif Omar has been roped in as a member of the Special Panel on Aminulrasyid’s death headed by Deputy Home Minister Datuk Abu Seman Yusup.

This is typical “guerrilla warfare” operation, making decisions on the run without an overall strategy.

The powerless Special Panel into Aminulrasyid’s police killing is neither fish nor fowl even with Tun Haniff as member, as well as other members including former Suhakam commissioner Denison Jayasooria, crime analyst Kamal Affendi Hashim, lawyer Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, Asian Strategy and Leadership Institute (Asli) chief executive officer Dr Michael Yeoh and UiTM deputy vice-chancellor Prof Abdul Halim Sidek.

The “guerrilla” response of the Home Ministry could be seen from the “on the run” chop-and-change as to what the Special Panel can and cannot do.

At first, Abu Seman said the Special Panel can neither inquire on its own nor make recommendations to the police.
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I will like to tell Tan Sri Musa Hassan – resign as Inspector-General of Police as the tearful eye-witness testimony of traumatized 15-year-old Azamuddin Omar on the police killing of his friend, Form III student Aminulrasyid Amzah some 100 metres from the latter’s house in Shah Alam a week ago has completely destroyed your credibility and authority.

If you love the Royal Malaysian Police Force, then you have no other option but to resign immediately to protect the police from the consequences of your gross failures of police leadership as IGP.

For the love of the country and the police force, resign now as IGP!

Let a new IGP start the difficult, painful but not impossible process to restore public confidence in the police where they regard the police as friend and protector and not as threat and even killer of innocent Malaysians, including school-children.

As final amends, in your resignation letter, make two recommendations to the Home Minister and Prime Minister, viz:
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The Parliamentary Roundtable on 28th July last year on “A new IGP for a Safe Malaysia” which was endorsed by responsible and conscientious MPs and key pillars of civil society have been vindicated – that instead of becoming safer, the people of Shah Alam had to exclaim in pain, sorrow and anger “This is not Manchester or Los Angeles, this is bloody Malaysia” following the heinous police killing of 14-year-old Form III student Aminulrasyid Hamzah.

Last July, the two main reasons I had given why Tan Sri Musa Hassan should go without renewal of his tenure and a new IGP appointed have come back to haunt the country and people because of their prescience and validity, viz:

• Failure of Musa in Key Performance Indicators (KPI) as IGP in the past three years, in all the three core police functions to keep crime low, eradicate corruption and protect human rights. In fact, it is no exaggeration to say that under Musa, Malaysians are even more unsafe from street crimes now than when he became IGP in September 5, 2006.

• The re-appointment of Musa for another term of IGP cast an adverse aspersion on all the senior police officers, as if there is not a single one out of the eight top police officers occupying key police positions below the post of IGP who are qualified or competent enough to become the new IGP to provide a new police leadership and culture to roll back the tide of crime in the past five years.

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Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Musa Hassan has committed gross insurbodination for the second time when he threatened to call police off the streets and not to enforce the law in retaliation against the firestorm of public outrage at the trigger-happy police killing of 14-year old Form III student Aminulrasyid Hamzah some 100 metres from his Shah Alam house in the early hours of Monday.

Star online today under the headline “IGP hits out at critics over shooting of teenager” reported:

KUALA LUMPUR: Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Musa Hassan has hit out at those criticising the force over the death of 15-year-old Aminulrasyid Amzah, saying he could call his men off the streets if that was what the people wanted.

“If you do not want the police to enforce the law, then say so,” he said. Read the rest of this entry »

“Hisham: We’ll be fair – Home Minister promises a thorough investigation” and “No cover-up in probe, says IGP” are two headlines in the Star today on the trigger-happy “shoot-to-kill” police killing of 14-year-old student Aminulrasyid Hamzah in the early hours of Monday morning, some 100 metres from his Shah Alam Section 11 house to assure the Malaysian public of the action being taken by the authorities.

Both the Home Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein and the Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Musa Hassan can shout from the rooftops but the duo will not be able to inspire confidence whether the aggrieved family or the outraged Malaysian public that there would be a thorough, independent and professional investigation into the heinous incident causing the death of a 14-year-old Form III student in Shah Alam.

The ham-fisted and unwarranted “stern warning” by the Selangor Police Chief Datuk Khalid Abu Bakar to politicians and the public not to make statements or to speculate on the incident has the unintended effect of further undermining public confidence in police integrity and professionalism.

Khalid is clearly behind-times as he does not realize that we are in the era of democratic and accountable policing, and not living in a police state where no questions should be asked about the police!
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Itzmir reels from the tragic death of his best buddy
ALFIAN TAHIR
Wednesday, April 28th, 2010 14:12:00 | Malay Mail

SHAH ALAM: The loss of his best friend, Aminul Rashid Amzah, 15, who was shot dead by police on Monday morning after allegedly trying to flee upon colliding with another car, is something Wan Iztmir Izzat Wan Abdul Rahim, also 15, can’t come to terms with. Recalling how Aminul died some five metres away from his best friend’s house, Iztmir said he was at home when he heard a loud bang.

Thinking it was just another accident, he ignored it until he realised there was a commotion outside.

“When I saw patrol cars and many people, I went out and saw a car with a youngster in it. I recognised my friend’s T-shirt and thought Aminul had one just like it,” said Itzmir “I got closer for a better look and I couldn’t believe what I saw. My best friend was slumped in the car.

“I asked the policeman what had happened but he told me to get back inside my house. When I asked again, the policeman just kept quiet.
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