Sunday, April 29, 2012

Lawyer claims he was attacked by cops


A lawyer who served as an observer at the Bersih 3.0 protest yesterday said he was attacked by police officers who continued beating him after he had been detained.

Mohd Haijan Omar, who was observing the protest on behalf of Lawyers for Liberty, was on his way to the parking lot in front of Reggae Mansion Hostel at Jalan Tun HS Lee when he saw several police officers pursuing fleeing protesters at around 7pm.

“I saw the police chasing the protesters. I was just standing there, I didn’t know whether to go to the left or right because it was just chaos in front of my eyes.

“Then they said something to me, and I replied, ‘Pardon me?’ and then they just started to charge at me, I was caught off-guard,” he said.

Mohd Haijan was clad in a yellow T-shirt with a white shirt on the outside during the protest.

However, he had removed the outer layer of his outfit as he was going home, and speculated that this may have been a possible reason why he was beaten up.

“They (two officers) started to whack me even after I told them I was a lawyer. Then another three officers came and they whacked me even after they had subdued me,” he said.

When he was being taken to Dataran Merdeka where all the detainees were being held, two more officers hit him again.

“I asked whether I was arrested but they didn’t say anything,” he said.

As a result, Mohd Haijan said he suffered a cut on the side of his left eye and a swelling at his jaw, on top of bruises throughout his body.

He was later taken to the Police Training Centre (Pulapol) at Jalan Semarak to be processed.

“Pulapol was totally a different world, there they serve you food and you wait for your number to be called,” he said.

Mohd Haijan has since lodged a police report yesterday over the incident.

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