Earlier tonight, Bukit Aman criminal investigation department director M Kumar said police have recorded statements from seven witnesses – three of the victims’ relatives and four medical officers – so far.
Rajesh Nagarajan and Sachpreetraj Singh Sohanpal said the omission of the police officers involved in the shooting from the probe so far is not a technical oversight, but a “structural failure that compromises the integrity of the entire investigative process”.
“In any lawful use-of-force investigation, the first and most critical step is to record statements from the officers who discharged their weapons,” they said in a joint statement tonight.
They said Bukit Aman’s failure to do so nearly two weeks after the incident “raised serious concerns of (alleged) evidence contamination and obstruction of justice”, among others.
Rajesh and Sachpreetraj said the families’ “non-negotiable” demands were the immediate recording of statements from all the officers involved, public disclosure of the chain of command and operational justification in the case, and independent oversight by external bodies.
“Until these minimum standards are met, this investigation cannot be considered credible, legitimate or lawful,” they said.
Earlier, Kumar said the victims’ relatives and lawyers went to Bukit Aman this morning to give their statements, where they also handed over an audio recording believed to be related to the incident.
He said a sample of a witness’s voice was also taken with the aid of CyberSecurity Malaysia for analysis.
Rajesh had said the families were dissatisfied with the meeting at Bukit Aman as they were not given answers to key questions on the nature of the investigation and who were on the special task force looking into the case.
The audio recording handed over to the police follows claims that M Puspanathan, 21, T Poovaneswaran, 24, and G Logeswaran, 29, were killed “execution-style”.
Melaka police chief Dzulkhairi Mukhtar had initially said the trio were serial robbers who had attacked an officer with a parang.