Rightful justice was finally served for a man who was wrongfully detained by police and imprisoned in the state of Perak over false charges of drug possession.
Perak man wrongly jailed for 106 days, gets RM242,000 compensation from Ipoh High Court
As reported on FMT, Mr Iekmal Hisham Harun was detained back on November 9th, 2016 for allegedly possessing 36.5g of heroin. At the time, former police inspector Siti Nor Fauziah Setapa was assigned as the investigative officer for his case.
Owing to the fact that he had committed a non-bailable offense, Iekmal was subsequently sent off to a prison in Tapah, Perak, upon being charged with drug trafficking. He was also slapped with a further three counts of possession on March 7th, 2017.
He would not be released until December 12th, 2017. Following his release, Iekmal claims that he was wrongfully imprisoned between November 21st, 2016 and March 7th, 2017 and had asked for damages committed against him by Siti. He asserted that he had suffered from her wrongfully carrying out her duties.
Source: Rondae (Pexels)
Prior to Iekmal’s release, Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) How May Ling had also filed a police report on February 23rd, 2017, claiming that her signature had been forged in a number of investigation papers that contained falsified information. The signatures of two other police officers were also found to have been forged.
Source: Ekaterina Bolovtsova (Pexels)
After investigations, the inspector was eventually convicted of the allegations and was sacked from her duty back in April 20, 2022. Siti did not contest the suit filed against her.
According to presiding Judge Bhupindar Singh, claims made by How and two police officers against Siti that she had forged their signatures were not contested by the government.
“The act was also done by Siti when she was carrying out her official duties. I cannot accept the argument that she was on a frolic of her own,” he said
While it was acknowledged that Iekmal should be rightfully compensated for the miscarriage of justice he had endured, his initial claim of damages amounting to RM3 million was rejected by Bhupindar on the grounds that the plaintiff should stand to be unjustly enriched through the court’s verdict.
The final decision from the high court was to offer Iekmal RM2,000 per day for the duration of 106 days that he was wrongly imprisoned followed by a RM30,000 in exemplary damages caused by Siti.
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