Hasan Ali and Me | Part Three
Just before I took Hasan Ali on, between the period of 2012 to 2016, I had the good fortune to meet and establish friendships or working relationships with a few excellent people that would prove satisfying, enduring, and inspiring. I hoped Hasan Ali would continue to be a part of that run of good fortune. Over the months of April and May 2017, my lawyers and I tried to make Hasan Ali feel welcome. He kept to himself; not speaking unless spoken to. When he wasn’t working he sat in the library and watched videos on his phone. He was obliging. He would attend to whatever was asked of him without complaint. We became more diligent about our firm lunches and dinners to have more opportunities to socialize with him. Asim Ng and Rafeeza, who sometimes exercised in the evening invited him on their runs. Asim lifted weights at the time so he had a little more room for conversation with him. Farhan and Aizat worked comparatively closer with him because they dealt with the daily dispatches. All four of my lawyers were gems. They contributed and took charge on their own accord without me saying a thing. It was like spontaneous order. I tried to get a conversation going with him after work, at a makan, or if I saw him around the office, but it did not get far. He was not a talker. Sometimes we talked. Sometimes we didn’t. Sometimes we just smoked wordlessly together staring at our smoke tendrils blending together before us in a swirling grey haze. Perhaps he was not comfortable talking to me. He would, however, respond to all my questions; so our ‘conversations’ often found me examining him in chief. Hasan Ali was one of the common many who ended up on legal aid for criminal cases. He was one of the multitude that slipped unnoticed through the cracks of the educational and social support system then surfacing like a leaping whale into society for a brief moment only for his conviction and sentence to be recorded; and then forever sealed within the cracks he fell through. He did not finish secondary school; worked a string of small jobs; never held on to anything that lasted more than two years at a time. His father passed away some time ago. His mother remarried. His step father had a much younger son whom Hasan Ali got along with. However, his step father picked on him and treated like an outsider too often. His mother would not defend him when he was being dressed down but tried to make it up to him later. He was unhappy about the situation but did not have enough money or stability to move out, especially since he gave his mother half. After his first week with us I told Hasan Ali to visit his mother who lived in Klang to show her he was fine and working on a new start over in Petaling Jaya. He did so and returned to report that she was pleased to know he was well. His time in prison was awful. He shared a prison room with at least seven others. It was cramped. As the new guy he slept on the floor closest to the communal toilet, which was open. He said the smell was something else. It was unforgettable and sometimes he would recall it involuntarily. There was no mattress. He slept on the dirty floor. Everything was a fight to keep. His personal rations and measly possessions would be taken from him if he could not defend himself. In his free time he would watch television with others. The television only showed religious educational programs. The food was bare sustenance – fish, rice, vege, and soup, of the poor quality. He stopped eating the rice after a while. He said it was hard or inedible. Although he knew other prisoners, he made no friends. I digress a moment to consider briefly the unfairness in our prisoners having to suffer over and beyond imprisonment and a regimented lifestyle. With the pandemic we can now appreciate how we can all go a little nuts in our own home even with all that we have at our disposal – decent food, internet access, social media, streaming services, video conferencing, for example. Even in our own homes there is a tugging stifling sense of confinement and a natural desire to go out. That is why the freedom of movement is a fundamental liberty enshrined in Article 9(2) of the Federal Constitution. It says every Malaysian citizen has the right to move freely throughout and reside anywhere in Malaysia. This liberty recognizes our human need to move about as we please without restraint. However, this liberty is subject to any law relating to national security, public order, public health or the punishment of offenders. That means our liberty of movement can be curtailed but only for very serious reasons. Now, how much greater is that sense of confinement living in a cramped prison room without access to any of our customary luxuries with bad food, worse company, and filthy floors? Section 6(1) of The Corrosive and Explosive Substances and Offensive Weapons Act 1958 prescribes a prison term of a minimum of five years and a maximum of ten years. It does not prescribe that a convict should be treated poorly during his imprisonment because the incarceration and regimented lifestyle already is the punishment and the extent of the legal sentence. Poor treatment cannot and should not form part of a prisoner’s legal punishment. It could be argued that poor food, poor living conditions, poor personal security conditions, etc. go far beyond the prescribed punishment that can be lawfully inflicted. Hasan Ali picked up scabies during his stay there which caused him immense discomfort. Is it fair or reasonable that he should be vulnerable and suffer that too (and god knows what else) in addition to his incarceration? Scabies is not an infection,
