KUALA LUMPUR – The family of deceased navy trainee J. Soosaimanicckam will lodge a police report, urging the authorities to investigate the Royal Malaysian Navy for the murder of their son.
The police report will be lodged in light of the recent Ipoh High Court verdict that found Soosaimanicckam’s death was due to homicide.
His father S. Joseph will file the police report at the Petaling Jaya police headquarters tomorrow morning, accompanied by lawyer Zaid Malek, Lawyers for Liberty (LFL) said in a statement today. Zaid is also LFL director.
Soosaimanickam was 27 years old when he died on May 19 2018, just a week after joining cadet training at the KD Sultan Idris naval base in Lumut, Perak.
A coroner’s inquiry into his death delivered an open verdict, but the Ipoh High Court on July 29 found the coroner to have erred and “taken the easy way out”.
The high court held that Soosaimanickam could have survived if navy officers did not deny him medical treatment when he sought it.
The court said his death was due to homicide, with the cause of death being pulmonary oedema (fluid in the lungs) caused by leptospirosis – “a direct consequence of the navy officers in charge of the cadet’s training in denying the deceased to seek medical treatment”, judge Datuk Abdul Wahab Mohamed said.
Soosaimanickam’s father filed a negligence suit in 2021 against 15 defendants, including the government and Malaysian Armed Forces Council.
The civil suit trial is still ongoing under judge Idah Ismail at Kuala Lumpur Sessions Civil Court. – July 31, 2024