KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 18 ― The Home Ministry has promised to investigate allegations of fatal torture at the Juru detention centre in Penang, after two Cambodian women who were held there claimed that officials abused them and beat other inmates to death. “We will investigate whether or not this is true, or just mere rumours. “We have not received any reports of this happening,” Deputy Home Minister Datuk Nur Jazlan Mohamed told Malay Mail Online when contacted yesterday. Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar also told Malay Mail Online that authorities will contact the Cambodian embassy here for further details on the allegation. The claims of fatal abuse reportedly surfaced after Cambodian labour rights group Central sent home two Cambodian women who had worked in Malaysia as maids before they were detained in the detention centre. One claimed that she witnessed a total of seven women die ― five Cambodians and two Vietnamese ― and that she saw the other deaths when she was asked to go along as a translator when the four were brought to a local hospital. This Cambodian woman was sent back to Cambodia in June, along with another Cambodian woman that told Central of the “same” alleged abuse in the Juru detention centre. The second woman had also fled her abusive employer before landing at the centre. The names of both women were not disclosed for safety reasons. The Cambodian Foreign Affairs Ministry has since refuted the claims of the two women, and that only two out of 33 Cambodians remained at the detention depot. According to The Cambodia Daily, one of the two would be going home soon and that the other individual, Saing Phlat, died of an unspecified “illness” on June 23. Former commissioner on the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam) James Nayagam said he had previously reported on the conditions of the Juru depot, which he described as unfit for humans and the worst and most deplorable detention camp in Malaysia. Rights group Tenaganita's Aegile Fernandez said local detention centres are where “migrant workers, refugees, stateless persons and migrants waiting to be deported” end up at, noting: “They are overcrowded, have little food given and minimum medical attention and of course abuses and rights violations.” Cambodia had in 2011 banned the sending of its nationals to work as maids in Malaysia after claims of alleged abuse by Malaysian employers and recruitment agents. In June this year, Cambodia offered to once again send domestic maids to Malaysia, with Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak then saying that Malaysia had accepted the offer.

Source: Malay Mail