Trained professionals, not doctors to cut off limbs

KUALA LUMPUR - PAS-led Kelantan is inching closer to rolling out its controversial hudud law next year, having settled the issue of who will carry out the amputation of limbs for convicted offenders after the country’s medical doctors balked at performing the deed.

The amputation will be done by “trained professionals” appointed by the state sultan, New Straits Times reported today, citing Datuk Dr Mohamed Fadzli Hassan, the deputy chairman of the state technical committee on the Syariah Criminal Code II Enactment.

“It was recommended that the job be carried out by trained professionals appointed by the sultan. Their duty will be to carry out the amputations and nothing else.”

“It was also suggested that the sentence be carried out at a place other than hospitals, as hospitals are a place for healing, not to carry out sentences,” Mohamed Fadzli was quoted saying.

He credited the proposal on ways to execute hudud punishments to a team of muftis, academics and professionals during a two-day discussion in Kota Baru that ended Tuesday.

The state official said his committee is putting the recommendations from the two-day discussion and will present it to the state executive council for consideration soon.

Mohamed Fadzli was also reported saying the committee had visited several several countries that have already implemented the controversial Islamic penal code, but added that those countries did not have a full or detailed standard of enforcement.

The news report did not name the countries.

In April, the Malaysian Medical Association (MMA) said it will seek to disqualify surgeons who perform the unethical amputations on criminals convicted under hudud in Kelantan.

Datuk Dr NKS Tharmaseelan, the MMA president, had stressed that doctors are bound by their professional ethics to do no harm.