Police Abuse MMS: Panel Given 30 Days

A five-member independent panel has been given 30 days to submit its report regarding their investigations on the ear squat video incident that has been in the spotlight for the past week or so.

Five-member independent panel to probe ear squat video incident named

KUALA LUMPUR: The five-member independent panel to investigate the ear squat video incident has been named. It has 30 days after the members receive their appointment letters to submit its report to the Yang di-Pertuan Agong.

As reported in The Star yesterday, former Chief Justice Tun Mohamed Dzaiddin Abdullah was named commission chairman, and former MCA deputy president Tan Sri Lim Ah Lek a member.

The other members of the panel are former Bar Council chairman Kuthubul Zaman Bukhari and Wanita Umno legal bureau chief Datuk Kamilia Ibrahim.

The fifth member is Internal Security Ministry deputy secretary-general Datuk Hamzah Md Rus, as the commission secretary.

All of them were also members of the Royal Commission to Enhance the Operation and Management of the Royal Malaysia Police. Hamzah was also the secretary then.

Dzaiddin's new panel is officially known as "The Commission of Inquiry into the Standard Operating Procedure, Approaches or Regulations in the Handling of Body Search in Connection with Arrest and Detention by the Police."

The list was announced in a statement issued by the Prime Minister's Department late yesterday.

The commission set up under the Commission of Inquiry Act 1950, and took effect yesterday.

The statement stated the appointment of Dzaiddin and his team and that the four terms of reference had received the consent of the King.

The terms of reference were:

# DETERMINE whether the woman seen in the video clip doing ear squats in the nude was one of the five Chinese nationals who were arrested and held by police;

# INVESTIGATE the handling of the body search of the woman seen in the video clip doing ear squats in the nude;

# DETERMINE whether there was any impropriety in the handling of the aforementioned body search; and

# INVESTIGATE the standard operating procedure, approaches or regulations in the handling of body search in connection with the arrest and detention by the police, and to propose any changes if needed. [...]

I find the members of the panel to be acceptable, knowledgable and balanced enough to tackle this problem. As for now, we can only wait for the report in a month's time.

(picture from The Star)