Key witness alleges she was hit with water bottle, head slammed against wall during police questioning

TAWAU – A key witness has alleged that she was hit in the face with a bottle filled with water by police personnel during questioning, to force her to confirm that the plaintiff was the real killer of her ex-husband.

The allegation was made after the plaintiff's lawyer, Sharatha Masyaroh John Ridwan Lincon, asked the witness, Nurima, to explain in detail what she went through, to show that her evidence regarding the murder case was not fabricated.

In her testimony, Nurima claimed her head was slammed against a cement wall by a policewoman, and that she was struck in the face by another officer, after she refused to go along with the contents of a confession form shown to her during the interrogation.

She said the form contained an admission that the plaintiff was the person who killed her ex-husband.

Nurima said she wanted to give truthful evidence but claimed she was not given the chance to speak. Instead, she said, police showed her several images taken from her mobile phone, including photographs of the plaintiff.

"At that point I wondered why these pictures were being shown to me, when I wanted to tell what actually happened. And the police said the plaintiff was the perpetrator," she said.

"The police tried to force me to state an explanation in a form which they said was a confession from John Kennedy (the plaintiff)," she added. Her testimony was given in Malay.

Nurima claimed she initially refused to sign the document before being hit in the face with the water-filled bottle.

"At first I did not want to, and at that time I was hit in the face with a bottle full of water, but I still held out and refused to follow what they (the police) wanted.

"They (the police) said John Kennedy had admitted that he was there and picked me up at the scene. Then I answered: 'No, that is not how it was'.

"They immediately doused me with water, and one policewoman slammed my head against the cement wall. Two other officers there were angry with me, as though telling me to go along with the confession on that paper," she said.

Following the testimony, counsel representing the defendants informed the court that the witness's allegations were new evidence not stated in the statement of claim, before applying for leave to cross-examine her on it.

The court, however, allowed the testimony to be recorded, holding that the earlier questioning of the witness by defence counsel had not given Nurima sufficient room to explain what had happened, allowing her only to agree or disagree.