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by Philip Kiew
MIRI: A widow who filed a civil suit against the
police and the Malaysian Government over the death of her husband in December
1997 told the Sessions Court here yesterday that he was shot in the
head.
Plaintiff Ndumit anak Egot, 45, from Rumah Sidu
longhouse in Bakong, testified that she was running away in the commotion at
her longhouse when she heard three shots rang out.
"I heard a woman calling me, saying that my husband
was shot," she said in the examination-in-chief by her senior counsel
Mekanda Singh Sandhu who is assisted by Harrison Ngau Laing.
Federal Counsel Amir Hamzah Othman represented the
first defendant Corporal Hussaini Sulong, second defendant Chief Inspector Chan
Kuang Yu and third defendant former Miri CID chief DSP Ernest
Sadan and the Government of Malaysia.
The Plaintiff in her statement of claims
said she
prayed for compensation, special damages and funeral expenses arising from the
death of her husband Enyang ak Gendang, on December 19,1997, which deprived her
and their two children of their source of income and support and incurring
substantial funeral expenses.
Ndumit said she found her husband laying on the floor
and held up his head which had a bullet wound at TR Banga longhouse, half an
hour by foot from their longhouse, where they had gone to attend a meeting to
discuss their claims of compensation from an oil palm company, which had
allegedly damaged their native lands and crops in Sg Lutong and Sungai Babai.
In her testimony yesterday, she recalled through an
Iban interpreter that she cried out for help while holding her husband's body
but nobody came as everyone was running away.
It
was only later that a policeman came and helped carry the body of her husband
to a police truck to be sent to Miri hospital. It was during the journey that she
overheard a policeman mentioning Corporal Hussaini as the one who shot her husband.
Her husband died in the intensive care unit five days
later, and the plaintiff lodged a police report over his death cross examined
by the senior federal counsel, Ndumit said she had no idea if the police wanted
to arrest longhouse chief Banga then. The hearing continues.