KUALA LUMPUR, April 8 — The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) has ordered all interrogations or interviews to be done on the ground floor only with immediate effect, two days after a Customs officer fell to his death at its Kuala Lumpur office building.
The anti-graft body also ordered maximum security for interrogation done on any other floors if ground-floor facilities were not available.
“All interrogations/interviews must be carried out on the ground floor only with immediate effect,” MACC deputy commissioner Datuk
Zakaria Jaafar told reporters at the commission headquarters in Putrajaya.
Selangor Customs assistant director Ahmad Sarbani Mohamed was found dead on the ground outside the MACC’s office in Jalan Cochrane here at about 10.20am on Wednesday.
The 56-year-old was believed to have fallen out of the building’s third-floor window.
Ahmad Sarbani was initially remanded on March 29 following an MACC-led swoop on Customs staff, resulting in the arrest of 62 officers.
The MACC raided over 100 premises including 25 Customs offices in a nationwide dragnet for alleged tax evasion, money laundering and illegal funds outflows worth billions of ringgit.
His death is the second in two years for MACC, following the eerily similar death of DAP political aide Teoh Beng Hock just under three years ago.
A royal commission of inquiry (RCI) is now going on into the death of Teoh, who plunged from the 14th floor of the then-Selangor MACC office at Plaza Masalam in Shah Alam on July 16, 2009.
Zakaria also said today any MACC officer found going against the directive — found in the Commissioner’s Standing Orders - will be sacked or issued a warning at the very least.
“The Commissioner’s Standing Orders are classified documents for the use of every MACC officer,” he said.
He added that witnesses and suspects may only be brought in as far as the reception area only and stressed that no officer, director or staff member should take visitors up to their office.
“MACC is a body that is concerned with visitors’ safety and officers’ discipline,” Zakaria said, pointing out he had already told the MACC safety director to check that all offices — whether owned or rented — were obeying these safety aspects fully.
The MACC announced yesterday that it had suspended two of its officers for leaving Ahmad Sarbani unattended before he fell to his death.
Both officers were suspended pending investigation for failing to accompany witnesses and customers at all times while on MACC premises. - Malaysian Insider
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