Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad was criticised today for defending police brutality by an opposition leader who claimed the premier had lost his 'mental balance' and was behaving like an 'African tin-pot leader'.

PRM president Dr Syed Husin Ali said it was wrong for the premier to compare the actions of the local police with the brutal acts committed by the Italian police against anti-globalisation demonstrators during the recent Group of Eight summit in Genoa.

The veteran politician also warned that the barbarous actions by the Italians, in which a protester was shot dead, should not give a free license to our police to resort to all kinds of cruel actions.

"Recent events have shown that the police and agent provocateurs have always been guilty of starting and perpetrating violence at peaceful gatherings organised by the alternative parties," he said.

'Western thinking'

On Monday, the Human Rights Commission (Suhakam) released a report on the aborted 10,000 People's Gathering along the Kesas Highway which found the police guilty of using excessive force against the demonstrators and "cruel and inhuman" treatment of detainees.

It also suggested that it was possible the police had orchestrated an assault on a police officer to turn an otherwise peaceful gathering into a violent one.

The scathing report has subsequently invoked the premier's wrath and the commission was accused of being influenced by western thinking.

Mahathir, who defended the police crackdown on the Kesas Highway participants, said that the police in the west were worse, and cited the violence which erupted in Italy as an example.

Trigger-happy police

However, Syed Husin said the prime minister was "behaving like one of those African tin-pot leaders" in criticising Suhakam.

"I am afraid that Mahathir has long lost his mental balance... It appears all too natural for him to brand whosoever and whatever that does not please him as meant to please the West instead," he added.

"Is Mahathir trying to say that the Suhakam commissioners are now Western agents and is he planning to replace some of them when their terms are over (in next April) because they have the courage to tell the truth?" asked Syed Husin.

Syed Husin also reminded Mahathir that in the past three years, the police have shot dead about 200 people who were merely 'suspected' criminals.

"Is that not brutal, especially when many of them would not have been given the death sentence if arrested and brought to court?"