Suaram is saddened and gravely concerned by the sudden and suspicious death of K. Yogeswaran and calls for a full and thorough investigation into the case. According to the uncle of Yogeswaran, he saw cuts on the deceased’s head, back, hands and legs and there was blood in Yogeswaran’s ears and also bruises on his belly.
Yogeswaran is a trainee of the Royal Malaysia Air Force (RMAF) special force unit and was found dead at the campsite at Sungei Pelek, Sepang on August 4.
It was explained by the RMAF that Yogeswaran fell in the toilet and died. However, it is mind boggling how a young, fit and healthy person selected for special force unit training could have died of a fall in the toilet. It is further highly suspicious that such a fall in a toilet could have inflicted injuries on the body as described by the uncle of the deceased. This raises grave concerns if the deceased had suffered torture and inhuman treatment before his death.
While welcoming the statement of Defence Minister Najib Tun Razak to make public the post-mortem report of the deceased, the Defence Minister must be answerable to the general public why there is such a high fatalities in the training camps under the Defence Ministry and what measures have been taken by the ministry to address the problem.
There have been 19 death cases in the National Service training camps since 2004. It is not known how many have died in the military training camps.
Suaram calls on the government to set up independent complaint channels in all army and the National Service training camps to prevent incidents of torture, inhuman and degrading treatment and abuse of powers.
There should be protection measures put in place for the complainants or whistle blowers as well to prevent personal vendetta forms of punishment of the complainants or whistle blowers by their trainer or superior that they complained against.
Only with such mechanism put in place that incidents of abuse of powers in training camps could be addressed and put to a stop before they develop into worst scenario involving death.
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