Jakarta (The Jakarta Post/ANN) - Indonesian watchdog Migrant Care director Anis Hidayah deplores the shootings of five Indonesians by Malaysian police in Perak, Malaysia, over the weekend, calling it a human rights violation.
Five Indonesians were killed in a shootout with the Malaysian police last Friday. An Indonesian official said that the five were illegal workers and had criminal records in the neighboring country.
The five ¿ identified as Jhoni, Ostnan, Hamid, Diden and Mahno -- were allegedly members of the Baju Hitam (Black Clothes) gang that specialized in burglary of luxurious homes in Penang.
¿Whatever documents they had¿or didn¿t have¿the incident which caused their death, was a human rights violation. International standards clearly stipulate that the police are not allowed to shoot anyone dead, not even a criminal,¿ Anis told The Jakarta Post Digital yesterday.
Anis also deplored the government¿s statement saying that they were illegal workers. ¿[Their status] does not justify the shootings,¿ she added.
Riau Islands Police chief Brig. Gen. Yotje Mende confirmed that the Indonesians who were reportedly from Batam, Riaus Islands, did not have criminal records in their hometown.
¿Many have asked us, but we don¿t have such records of them,¿ he said.
The Indonesian Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, however, confirmed that four Indonesians¿and not five as previously reported--had been killed in the shootout.
In a statement released on Thursday, the embassy said the four were riding a Proton Wira car around Taman Meru housing complex when Malaysian police intercepted them around 3 a.m.
¿After being chased by the police, the car stopped after hitting a cliff. The four passengers came out and opened fire on the cops,¿ stated the embassy, as quoted by kompas.com.
At the scene, police confiscated two firearms, three machetes, three laptops, three digital cameras, five cell phones, two wrist watches, a fake car plate and sums of cash in Japanese yen, rupiah and Malaysian Ringgit.
Through thumbprint identification two of the dead were identified as Indonesia citizens.
The following day, embassy staff inspected the remains at the Raja Permaisuri Bainoon hospital in Ipoh, Perak. Another of the dead men, from Probolinggo, East Java, was identified by his wife on Monday.
All the three identified bodies will be returned to Indonesia soon, the embassy stated.
The embassy, with the help of Indonesian Foreign Ministry, is still trying to identify another of the men.
Two wives of the men Devi, wife of Jhoni, and Santi, wife of Ostnan said they were suspicious of the strange condition of their husbands' bodies.
¿I saw it on the Internet. Their bodies looked awful. It looked like their organs had been harvested. We also watched the shootings on [Malaysian local TV] TV3,¿ Devi told the Post.
Devi said that his husband had worked in a palm oil plantation in Malaysia since 2006. She admitted that her husband did not have proper working visa.
¿He returned home once every two weeks. I know nothing about his life there but I don¿t believe he was a robber,¿ she said.
Santi demanded the government repatriate the bodies of their husband immediately.
¿I don¿t care about the condition, but I want my husband to be buried in Indonesia,¿ she said.
