Rania Aljunied
We refer to the statement issued by the director of the Criminal Investigation Department, Commissioner of Police M Kumar on 27 October that the investigation into Noorizwan Zulkefly’s death in police custody is being investigated under section 331 of the Penal Code, which is voluntarily causing grievous hurt to extort a confession.
This is totally unacceptable to the family.
First, section 331 is an offence of hurt. Noorizwan is dead. When injuries voluntarily inflicted result in death, the offence is no longer one of hurt. It is murder, and here the requirements of section 302 are met.
The classification of an investigation must reflect the harm that actually resulted. Investigating a death as “grievous hurt” treats a man who has been killed as if he had survived.
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Second, Bukit Aman’s own choice of offence is telling. Section 331 requires that grievous hurt was voluntarily caused.
Bukit Aman is therefore already proceeding on the footing that someone deliberately inflicted these injuries. Its own statement also confirms that the injuries are consistent with blunt trauma and are not self-inflicted.
On 12 October the senior pathologist told the family, the lawyers and two Bukit Aman officers that Noorizwan died from blunt force trauma to the head, with generalised bleeding in the brain. The injuries were extensive, covering the head, eyes, ears, shoulders, back, arms, thighs, knees and feet.
On these facts, the evidence already known to the police points to the deliberate infliction of bodily injury sufficient in the ordinary course of nature to cause death. That is clearly envisaged in section 302, and the investigation must be opened as a murder investigation.
Third, in a spate of recent cases, the police and attorney general charged drunk drivers who have accidentally caused death as murder under section 302. [On 28 October] an airline steward was charged with murder in Kuala Lumpur for allegedly having killed a person while driving under the influence of alcohol.
How is it that a drunk driver accidentally killing a road user is murder, but deliberate and severe beatings inflicted by police upon a detainee causing death is not murder?
No reasonable person would agree that the horrific injury suffered by Noorizwan and his consequent death deserves a lesser charge than that of a drunk driver killing a road user.
The law must be applied fairly and proportionately; to do otherwise would be contrary to the rule of law.
In other words, Noorizwan’s case is far graver. Section 331 only carries a maximum of 10 years’ imprisonment. That is no measure of accountability for murder.
Lastly, Bukit Aman says the full autopsy report is “pending laboratory analysis”.
That will change nothing. Toxicology and tests on blood and other samples can only address whether other factors contributed. They cannot displace the pathologist’s finding that blunt force trauma caused death.
An investigation can always be reclassified later, but a classification that understates the offence from the start shapes how it is conducted, which officers are treated as suspects, and what is preserved.
The only acceptable classification is murder under section 302 of the Penal Code. Anything less is a failure of justice, and the family will never accept it.
On behalf of the family of Noorizwan Zulkefly, we demand that the inspector general of police immediately reclassify the case and investigate Noorizwan’s death as murder under section 302 of the Penal Code and explain why a man who died from a beating in police custody is being investigated under an offence of hurt.
Meanwhile, the attorney general’s continued silence is disappointing. We urge him to intervene to ensure that the investigation proceeds in accordance with the facts and evidence of the case and the proper provisions of the law.
Noorizwan did not survive his injuries. The investigation must reflect that.
Rania Aljunied is the director of Lawyers for Liberty and lawyer for the family of Noorizwan Zulkefly.
29 October 2026
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