Kopral Jenain's Conviction: A Travesty of Justice

Kopral Jenain Subi was found "guilty of causing the death of teenager Aminulrasyid Amzah" by Sessions Court judge Latifah Mohd Tahar and is sentenced to five years in prison. 


Something is dreadfully wrong here: if this is "justice", I don't want any part of it.

Some might say Kopral Jenain "got off rather lightly" since the maximum sentence under the 304 (a) section that he was charged with provides for a maximum of 30 years and a fine upon conviction. But the question that must be asked is this: despite what the Sessions Court judge says, is Kopral Jenain really guilty in the first place?!

As of the writing of this post, details of the judgement are still scare. I've been looking around the Internet for a transcript of what the judge had pronounced but I couldn't find it. Most of the items at the news sites and blogs repeat pretty much the same thing as this report from Bernama. As such it is impossible to know what it was that had led the judge to find Kopral Jenain guilty.

For the moment, I'd like to address one aspect of the case which some people had held on to in their argument that "Jenain was guilty in that he had used excessive force": the number of shots that he had fired from his sub-machine gun (21 shots). Plus "it was unjustified since Jenain's life was not at risk."


Let’s also look at it from this angle: How many shots constitute `reasonable’ and `too many’?.. 5, 10, 19?

And I beg to differ about the policemen’s lives “not being threatened at all” — what if they lost control of their vehicles? Or fail to avoid a lorry? They might also be thinking about others’ lives… the innocent bystanders who stand a real risk of being hit by any of the vehicles in the chase.

Despite the hour, that was city road “with enough traffic”. Each second these vehicles move at high speed, there’s the risk of something ugly happening to someone uninvolved — one Securicor jaga might be on his way home on a 100 cc Honda Cup after a dull day struggling to support his family. Suddenly, he hears sirens from behind and sees headlight reflections…and one car clips his bike from behind and gets thrown off. It might be fatal… Consider that the police might be trying be trying to prevent such things from happening. Or, must a perpetrator’s safety and well-being be the prime consideration?

When you drive today, look at the tyres of the Proton Iswara in front… from 10 metres or whatever, and at speed, how many shots do you think you’s need to hit the target? You’ll see how small the target is — the only people who can hit it with no more than 3 are Clint Eastwood and Chow Yuen Fatt. The shooter might have set it to automatic which lets off a burst; giving him a better chance that one might hit the tyre.

But when it does get hit, based on the sparks, the car still sped on. The driver clearly didn’t want to be caught… “What had he done; what’s he hiding?? Must be something serious”, would be the logical though. So, he goes for the other tyre… and one shot’s trajectory was towards the driver. Whether intentional or not, we certainly don’t know.

Imagine this possible scenario: it wasn’t Aminul and his friend but two people with eight convictions that include for violent crime. And they had just robbed a family, plus raped a woman inside, and were on their way for more of the same. This time, the police only gave chase and didn’t shoot because they weren’t 100% sure. The cretins got away. And committed another crime in another part of the city a couple of hours later.

Only later do the police know about the deeds committed… and so do the media. Guess what the public would scream: “The police had guns… the car didn’t stop – WHY DIDN’T THEY SHOOT when there was just cause to do so?!…violent creatures were allowed to escape, and commit another crime! We can’t hope for the police to protect us, useless oafs!”

The Aminul case is tragic, but if we are keen to place the blame on someone, let’s be fair and not look at the police only. This will be unpopular with some, but shouldn’t the car’s owner be held responsible too… for allowing it to be used by someone whom s/he knows didn’t have a license. This wouldn’t have happened had (1) Aminul didn’t have access to the car (2) Aminul had stopped. But he chose to take the risk to try shake off the police.

The only thing that I'm relieved about from today's court session is that Kopral Jenain has been allowed bail pending his appeal to a higher court. As in the words of someone at Twitter, "Kopral Jenain was an unfortunate victim of circumstances". To me at least, Kopral Jenain shouldn't be found guilty of anything... he shouldn't have to spend even one day in prison.