Malay woman claims she was the victim in police video scandal

Malay woman claims she was the victim in police video scandal

Pauline Jasudason, Associated Press/Kuala Lumpur

An ethnic Malay came forward on Tuesday and claimed she was the Chinese-looking woman whose naked video in police custody sparked a protest from China.

Government lawyers at a public inquiry into the scandal instructed the media not to publish her name and photograph, but the woman shocked observers during the hearing when she identified herself as a pregnant, 22-year-old Malay Muslim.

She had previously been believed to be a Chinese national or an ethnic Chinese Malaysian, based on her appearance in grainy video images that showed her being forced to strip and perform squats in front of a female officer in a police lockup.

China's government formally protested and urged action over the incident. The video also triggered concerns that police in this mostly Malay Muslim nation routinely mistreat detainees and unfairly target Chinese, who comprise Malaysia's main ethnic minority community.

The video was secretly shot using a camera phone and made public by an opposition lawmaker who received it from an anonymous source last month.

A commission of legal experts and politicians established by the government began an inquiry on Monday to determine whether police had flouted procedure and violated the rights of the woman, who is among 21 witnesses summoned to provide evidence.

The woman, who nearly broke down in tears during her testimony, said the incident in the lockup occurred in June when she was arrested in Kuala Lumpur on suspicion of drug possession. She has since been formally charged, but is free on bail pending trial.

Asked how she felt while performing the squats, she said: "Ashamed and angry."

Reporters were unable to see her face, as she had her back to the public gallery in the courtroom where the hearing took place. Officials covered her face with a coat when she left.

Later on Tuesday, Zawati Zalina Ismail, the policewoman in the video, testified that she regularly stripped female detainees and forced them perform squats to ensure they weren't hiding weapons, drugs or other banned objects.

Another policeman, Suhaimi Nordin, claimed one of his colleagues filmed the incident surreptitiously and showed it to him. "He told me that it was footage of a Malay woman detained in a drug case. I scolded him and urged him to delete it," Suhaimi said.

Malaysia's ex-chief justice, Dzaiddin Abdullah, who headed the inquiry, agreed to a request by lawyers to bar the media from revealing the woman's identity. The move would "protect the right of privacy and dignity and prevent embarrassment to the witness," Dzaiddin said.

Lim Kit Siang, Malaysia's top opposition leader in Parliament, criticized the government for not informing the public sooner that the woman was not Chinese.

"As the woman victim was generally believed to be a Chinese national, the disclosure ... would have helped to defuse the furor aroused by the incident on the part of the Chinese government," Lim said in a statement.