The commission probing the case of a woman being forced by the police to do ear squats in the nude today asked the victim to face the public gallery after doubts were raised about her identity.

Yesterday, the woman was identified as a local Malay dispelling earlier speculations that she could be a Chinese national.

This morning, lawyer Sankara Nair had questioned her identity since during yesterday's hearing only the commissioners were allowed to see her face.

Sankara is representing four out of five Chinese nationals, all of whom women, who had complained about police abuse earlier.

In response to this, the head of the five-member commission, former chief justice Mohamed Dzaiddin Abdullah, recalled the woman for identification at 5pm after the inquiry adjourned 45 minutes earlier.

Sankara convinced

Before the commission reconvened, the woman, clad in a pink baju kurung and wearing a tudung, was already seated in the first row of the courtroom facing the commissioners.

At the same time, a large screen in the room displayed a scene from the clip which clearly showed the woman's face.

The screen, which yesterday had only faced the commissioners, was this time around positioned towards the public gallery.

Before proceeding, Dzaiddin reminded the media about the gag order on the identity of the victim.

He then asked the woman if it was her in the clip, to which she replied: "Yes, it's me".

Sankara was then asked to come forward to have a clearer view of her face. The lawyer then told the commissioners he was satisfied that the woman in the court and the one in the clip were the same person.

Dzaiddin then asked the woman, who appeared hesitant, to remove her tudung and face the public gallery. The whole process took about 10 minutes.

In a related development, Dzaiddin rejected Sankara's application to allow his clients to testify on the grounds that it was not part the inquiry's term of reference since the victim has been identified.

One of the primary tasks of the commission was to establish if the woman doing the ear squats in the video-clip exposed by an opposition parliamentarian was one of the five Chinese nationals.

The five are Yu Xuezhen, Wu Xiohua, Gu Xiuhua, Liu Jing and Wang Xiu Lan.

Independent evidences

When raising his doubt over the victim's identity earlier, Sankara said the commission should not rely only on the information provided by the police.

"This is an independent inquiry. It should have more independent evidences to show that this was the woman in the video clip," he told the commissioners.

The commission, which was set up upon the instructions of Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi after the clip was exposed, has 30 days to complete its probe.

The other commissioners are former MCA deputy president Lim Ah Lek, former Bar Council chairperson Kuthubul Zaman Bukhari and Internal Security Ministry deputy secretary-general Hamzah Md Rus who is the commission secretary.

Sixteen witnesses have been summoned for testimony since the hearing started on Monday.

At the first day of the hearing, deputy public prosecutor Suhaimi said 21 witnesses will be called to testify.

The hearing continues Friday.