NOV 20 — On Oct 22, the body of a 15-year-old student was found stuffed in a suitcase at Kota Kemuning in Shah Alam. Police arrested her friend and his identity was made public by certain newspapers.
The face of building caretaker Poon Wai Hong being taken to the police station was plastered in the newspapers, clearly in response to public outrage over the crime, known as “cosplay murder”.
Nine days later, Poon, 23, was charged in a magistrate’s court with killing the girl in his house in Kelana Jaya. No plea was recorded. But at the point of arrest, the common rule of innocent until proven guilty was not honoured by the press.
On Oct 23, Subang AmBank officer operations manager Norazita Abu Talib was fatally shot by the bank’s security guard with a pump-gun when she and a colleague were opening a safe. The guard escaped with RM450,000.
A CCTV footage showing the suspect in the bank after the incident went viral as police mounted a manhunt for him. On Nov 10, police captured the alleged rogue guard in Johor.
Pictures of him, accompanied by hooded police officers, made for dramatic banner headlines in certain newspapers. They even carried his real name as revealed by the police.
Yesterday, Indonesian La Ode Ardi Rasila, 35, was accused of murdering Norazita and robbery. No plea was recorded but again at the point of arrest it appeared he had been tried by the media.
So, should a crime suspect be given anonymity? Would the privacy and human rights of the suspects be breached if their identities were made public during investigations? Should the police limit media access to the identity of a suspect?
The controversy over whether to disclose the identity of a crime suspect while under investigation is not new in Malaysia.
Debate raged when two former police commandos — Azilah Hadri and Sirul Azhar Umar — were held in connection with the 2006 murder of Mongolian Altantuya Shaariibuu. They had their faces concealed by police all the time, even when they were taken for the hearings.
They were freed on Aug 23 this year after the Court of Appeal allowed their appeal and overturned their conviction for murder.
Till today most Malaysians, who were gripped by the high-profile killing do not know what the police officers look like.
On Oct 22 this year, a female assistant superintendent with Penang police L. Chand Kumari, 56, who allegedly helped a “Casanova doctor” escape while in custody, had her face concealed with a track top while being led to a magistrate’s court.
The normal arrest procedures requiring police to keep the identity of a suspect anonymous are not consistent.
Further, media practices have changed. In the past newspapers wrote about a “20-year-old man” being detained rather than identifying suspects before charges were brought.
Certain newspapers, broadcasters and a section of the public argue that the people have the right to know the identity of a suspect in a big public interest story.
They dismiss the probability of trial by media, especially when law enforcement has strong evidence of guilt, on grounds of public safety and deterring crime.
Human rights organisations think otherwise. They sit on the code that suspects are innocent until proven guilty.
They maintain that revealing the identity of a suspect violates basic human rights and exacts emotional pain on the suspect’s family.
They hold that re-assimilation into society upon release would become more difficult and contribute to recidivism.
In the UK, senior ministers and part of the public are backing a change in the law to stop the media identifying crime suspects before they are charged.
They want reporting restrictions, which means no newspaper or broadcaster can identify someone arrested or questioned by the police until after a decision had been made to charge the person with a crime.
The UK Association of Chief Police Officers, supported by several senior judges, has argued that suspects should be able to retain their anonymity in order to protect the innocent from reputational damage.
UK newspapers contend that while this might sound like a noble idea, it is short-sighted because publicity after an arrest could be vital in encouraging more victims and witnesses to come forward.
Their case for revealing the identity of a suspect veers into societal interest.
A Malaysian newspaper editor shares the same argument: “It’s a democratic right for the public to know who the police have in custody and why.
“Anonymity can become a means to protect the guilty or shield powerful institutions from criticism.”
There is however a grave danger with such a stance. Let’s take as a yardstick the celebrated case of Chris Jeffries, a retired teacher from Bristol who was wrongly arrested over the 2010 murder of Joanna Yeates.
Jeffries was vilified by the popular press after being mistakenly arrested for the murder of 25-year-old Yeates, a tenant in the building he owned.
He claimed his name was disclosed by police to newspapers and ended up being awarded substantial libel damages from eight newspapers over their portrayal of him.
Clearly, there must be greater certainty, consistency and a proper decision-making process in the way police release information about those arrested.
One way around the arrest anonymity could be for media organisations to seek permission from a magistrate to name individuals.
But this should not be enshrined in law. It would be draconian to criminalise the identification of anyone who had been arrested without first seeking official permission.
While I agree there should be reporting restrictions, there should also be a mechanism that would allow reporters to request that they are lifted.
The current scenario is scary: The accusation against someone who has been wrongly detained and subsequently never charged will be on Google for the rest of his life – he will never be able to get away from it.
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
