Amnesty International Malaysia would hereby bring to your attention the following response to the Deputy Inspector-General of Police Datuk Ismail Omar’s comment on the recent Amnesty International Report on Death Penalty in Malaysia. We are of the view that the observation made by Datuk Ismail Omar on the report is incorrect and therefore his comment is misleading.
The report titled “Death Sentences and Executions in 2007″, released on April 15 2008, merely asserts the fact that information on executions and death penalty in Malaysia, a country that retains and practices death penalty as a form of punishment for a various offences, is shrouded in secrecy. The report in every sentence either directly or indirectly did not assert or put forward any fact of arbitrary executions or extra judicial killings by the police in Malaysia or any other facts that undermine police investigations and criminal procedures.
The following is the exact paragraph taken from the April 15 report titled “Death Sentences and Executions in 2007″ (AI Index: ACT 50/001/2008) that can be referred to at our website at www.amnesty.org
“…Amnesty International remains concerned that executions may have taken place in Mongolia and Malaysia. However, due to the secretive nature of the use of the death penalty the organization was unable to obtain reliable information.”
Amnesty International Malaysia therefore calls on the government of Malaysia to make an official release on all statistics on executions and death sentences in Malaysia to date. We also urge the government to be more transparent and report on cases and statistics of death penalty and executions to the Parliament annually. The United Nations in the past repeated calls for the death penalty only to be used in an open and transparent manner.
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