The death of convict Mohd Zafari Mohd Yunus in lockup is the sixth in just three months of 2015 and Suaram has urged the police to reveal the results of the initial autopsy.

 

"Usually, in the case of custodial death, the police would issue a statement regarding the results of the initial investigations and state that an autopsy would be conducted.

 

"However, the police did not issue any statement related to the results of the autopsy on each victim of death in custody.

 

"It would be good if the police inform the public about the latest results of the investigations on custodial deaths, especially the result of the autopsy report.

 

"This is to avoid incidents of false information and obfuscation," said the human rights organisation in a statement today.

 

Mohd Zafari was convicted for robbery on March 12 for an incident in 2013.

 

He was subsequently taken to the Ipoh detention centre after receiving a sentence that day of eight years' imprisonment and three strokes of the cane.

On the same day during detention, the victim was reported to have fallen on the way to the toilet and suffered injury to the back of his head, and was taken to the hospital.

 

Mohd Zafari passed away at 1.25am the next morning at the Hospital Raja Permaisuri Bainun.

 

Suaram said the family of the deceased has reportedly lodged a police report and requested to view the CCTV footage that the police admit exists.

 

The NGO said the family has the right to view the CCTV footage, and hoped the police would make the footage part of the evidence in the investigation.

 

"Suaram hopes the police will be transparent in every case of death in custody.

 

"Any dishonesty or wrong information on the part of the police would mean a lack of integrity and would be irresponsible," said the NGO.

 

One such example, said Suaram, was when the police claimed "sudden death" in a previous custodial death victim Syed Mohd Azlan ( above ) which was subsequently refuted by the hospital, which said the cause of death was blunt force trauma to the chest.