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SUHAKAM
cadets who were in training and those who left. However, the findings
were not consistent. The cadets still in training said there were no
human rights violations involving the deceased throughout the whole
week whereas cadets who left said a senior officer had slapped
the deceased multiple times because he was unable to cope with
the training. As penalty, the deceased was also isolated from the
other cadets and forced to complete double the physical training
compared to the other cadets. SUHAKAM believes that the incident
of being slapped by a senior officer could not be a direct contributing
factor to his death. However, forcing the deceased to complete
physical training despite his weak condition and poor performance
may be the main reason the deceased developed Rhabdomyolysis1
that subsequently leads to Pulmonary Odema (liquid in lungs) which
caused the death of the deceased.
Based on its investigations, SUHAKAM
recommendations for the relevant agencies:
made
the
following
i.
SUHAKAM recommends the Ministry of Health conducts a thorough
medical investigation to determine a more particular cause of death.
In this case, no specific cause of death was able to be identified via
the post-mortem.
ii. The Ministry of Health should strengthen the cooperation between
Hospital Seri Manjung and HAT. In this case, two different doctors
from the respective hospitals handled the deceased’s body. The
doctor from HAT confirmed the death, took some blood samples
and came up with his findings. The doctor from Hospital Seri Manjung
conducted a post-mortem and came up with his conclusions as well.
If both doctors were in communication prior to the post-mortem,
they could have incorporated both their findings and probably been
able to identify a more specific cause of death.
iii. In cases of conflict of interest of the witnesses (cadets), PDRM should
independently call for witnesses rather than just interview those
provided by the KDSI officers.
iv. The BOI should inform the next-of-kin formally of the findings of the
internal investigation as this would increase their trust in the BOI
investigations.
1
Rhabdomyolysis is the breakdown of muscle tissue that leads to the release of
muscle fibre contents into the blood. These substances are harmful to the kidney
and often cause kidney damage – Source: US National Library of Medicine;
https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/000473.htm