The Prison Department had never allowed or ordered its officers to use excessive force on prisoners when they refused to follow instructions, said its commissioner general, Abdul Aziz Abdul Razak.

He was testifying before a Suhakam panel led by its chairperson, Hishamudin Yunus, and commissioner Farah Nini Dusuki, in their investigation into an altercation on Jan 17 that involved over 100 inmates at Taiping Prison, resulting in one death.