The Enforcement Agency Integrity Commission (EAIC) today announced in a report that N Dharmendran died in police custody on May 21, 2013 due to injuries sustained from physical force exerted on him by police officers.
EAIC chair Yaacob Md Sam told Bernama that the commission recommended disciplinary action and criminal charges be imposed on the police personnel involved in the fatal beating.
According to Yaacob, thepost-mortem forensics report on Dharmendran’s body issued by the Kuala Lumpur Hospital Forensic Department on May 22, 2013 stated that “diffuse soft tissue injuries due to multiple blunt force trauma” was the cause of death.
The forensics report also showed that Dharmendran had sustained a total of 52 bruises on his body while in police detention.
“The bruises are believed to have been sustained from the use of blunt force that caused massive blood loss leading to hypovolemic shock. Two staples were found embedded on the deceased’s ears, one on the right ear and the other on the left, that had left puncture wounds on both ears,” Yaacob told a news conference in Putrajaya today.
KL police chief Amar Singh declined to respond to a request for a comment by The Malay Mail Online‘s Boo Su-Lyn on the matter, citing the case as still pending.
On Dec 12, 2014, the Kuala Lumpur High Court acquitted four police officers – Inspector S Hare Krishnan, Sgt Jaffri Jaafar, Cpl Mohd Nahar Abd Rahman, and Cpl Haswadi Zamri Shaari of the charge of murdering Dharmendran while he was in their custody.
Justice Kamardin Hashim’s ruling was that the prosecution failed to provide a motive for the four, and only provided circumstantial evidence to back its case.
