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GEORGE TOWN: An inmate at Penang Pretrial Detention Tested Positive for Covid-19, Lawyer Says.
As a result, all inmates at the facility and Jawi’s will not be brought to court, according to the attorney requesting anonymity.
He said the latest instruction came after they were informed of the positive case on Monday (October 5).
“After we were informed about the case, we were told that the inmates from both prisons will not be brought to court for the time being.
“I am concerned because I have clients there, but since the motion control order (MCO) started, the visits have been different as we speak with our clients through a phone separated by a glass window between us,” he said, and added that the preventive prison has a capacity for 1,100 inmates.
A separate source from within the prison said they could not comment as they were in the middle of a meeting and would have to discuss the matter with the state Department of Health.
In a report published by The Star in October 2019, the 170-year-old Penang Pretrial Prison is said to be overcrowded and struggling to accommodate 1,600 inmates housed there.
The Penang Pretrial Detention is the third prison affected by the coronavirus after Tawau in Sabah and Alor Setar, Kedah.
On Monday, the Alor Setar prison in Kedah was placed under an improved MCO run for 14 days following a spike in Covid-19 infections there.
The Enhanced Targeted MCO imposed at Tawau Prison from September 11-25 was extended from September 26 to October 9, due to the double-digit cases it recorded.
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