Custodial death: Obese Nigerian student forced to do frog jumps - lawyer
Lawyer Rajesh Nagarajan submitted that other negligent acts of immigration officers included forcing the morbidly obese postgraduate student with high blood pressure to perform frog jumps while at the Bukit Jalil Immigration depot.
The counsel for the family of the deceased contended that...
A series of negligent acts, starting with an unlawful arrest, led to the death of Thomas Orhions Ewansiha three years ago, the Kuala Lumpur High Court heard today.
Lawyer Rajesh Nagarajan submitted that other negligent acts of immigration officers included forcing the morbidly obese postgraduate student with high blood pressure to perform frog jumps while at the Bukit Jalil Immigration depot.
The counsel for the family of the deceased contended that immigration enforcement officers committed an unlawful arrest of 34-year-old Orhions (above) on July 4, 2019, despite him having a valid passport and student visa.
Rajesh said that after being beaten by the authorities during the arrest, the student was then hauled to the immigration detention centre, where they forced him to perform squats.
“He (Orhions) was punished and forced to perform frog jumps, resulting in injury to him. He was quite an obese person, weighing between 130kg and 140kg, and he suffered from high blood pressure.
“The immigration (authorities) did not even check his blood pressure,” Rajesh said, adding that this was because the immigration officers claimed that Orhions’ arm was too big for the blood pressure machine’s arm reader.
The lawyer also claimed that an assistant medical officer at the depot gave the student amlodipine (a medicine for the treatment of high blood pressure), which itself may have contributed to Orhions’ heart attack five days later on July 9.
“The drug amlodipine is a controlled drug under the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952 and can only be prescribed by a registered person such as a medical officer,” he said, adding that the assistant medical officer is not one of these persons.
Lawyers’ submissions
The lawyer further contended that Orhions’ heart attack was further exacerbated by the deplorable condition of his detention cell, where his cellmate testified that the student was even forced to sleep on the hard floor with a water bottle as a pillow.
Rajesh submitted this during the hearing of the family’s application to overturn the Coroner Court’s verdict on Nov 12 last year which exonerated the authorities of culpability in the Nigerian’s custodial death.
Coroner Mahyon Talib ruled that Orhions died of natural causes which could not be concluded to be caused by negligence or criminal elements.
The immigration authorities claimed the student was detained during an immigration operation in Desa Aman Puri Apartment.
They claimed he was subsequently placed under remand for 14 days to verify his documents and seek confirmation from the college on his attendance record and details of his course.
Meanwhile, during an open-court hearing before judicial commissioner Azhar Abdul Hamid, deputy public prosecutor Kamarul Aris Kamalluddin countered that the issue of alleged unlawful arrest is not relevant to today’s matter.
The prosecutor said it is because the inquest was only concerned with Orhions’ cause of death, adding that the pathology report stated that the student died of natural causes namely a heart attack and not because of being beaten.
“Based on the pathology report, there was no testimony (from the inquest) showing that the drug (amlodipine) was in the deceased’s system, so how can it be said this caused the heart attack,” Kamarul submitted.
The prosecutor did concede that the coroner found that if immediate medical treatment had been given to Orhions when he fainted from the heart attack, the student could have been saved.
Kamarul also pointed out that the officers at the immigration depot did try their best to save Orhions’ life by giving the detainee CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) 600 times before the ambulance arrived there.
“Therefore, the coroner was correct in finding that the deceased passed away due to natural causes with no criminal element or negligence,” the prosecutor contended.
(According to the prosecution's written submissions, it was contended that the Immigration officer there performed CPR up to 600 ‘times’ on the just fainted Orhions based on the assistance given via telephone from a hospital representative while the authorities waited for the paramedics to reach the depot.)
At the end of proceedings, Azhar said the court needed time to consider submissions from parties, and reserved judgment over the family’s bid to revise the coroner’s finding.
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