Teoh kin rue Putrajaya’s reluctance to charge MACC trio

By Debra Chong

October 27, 2011

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 27 — Teoh Beng Hock’s family accused the Najib administration of “taking grieving family members for a ride” by not pushing for criminal charges against three national graftbusters despite a royal investigation panel finding the trio contributed to the political aide’s death two years ago.

The Teohs said the government’s inaction casts serious doubt not only on the credibility of the Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) the prime minister foisted on the family, but its chairman, Federal Court judge Tan Sri Datuk Seri James Foong Cheng Yuen.

The Teoh family. — file pic

“What we do not understand is until today, why the government still thinks the RCI report does not carry enough evidence for commencing action against these officers who have abused their power, but spends more public funds to conduct another round of investigation?” the dead DAP aide’s family questioned in an email statement toThe Malaysian Insider.

“We want to know then, on what basis that we, the grieving family members of the deceased, were asked to accept the findings stated in the RCI report, that Beng Hock died of forced suicide?” they asked.

The still-grieving family was responding to de facto law minister Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz’s statement three days ago that the government would not be prosecuting the three officers from the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) despite being named in the RCI report released three months ago because no one had filed a police report to do so.

The Teohs said they found it incredulous the government remained suspicious and sceptical of the RCI report and left it to the MACC to head another “special task force investigating their own officers”.

They pointed out the RCI had incriminated the MACC trio in its report for using inappropriate violence to draw information out of Beng Hock who was only a witness.

The family further noted the RCI had named the MACC men as investigation officer Mohd Anuar Isamil (“the bully”); assistant investigation officer Mohd Ashraf Mohd Yunus (“the abuser”); and former deputy director of its Selangor branch Hishammuddin Hashim (“the arrogant leader”).

“If Nazri himself does not accept the findings of this report, why are we requested to accept the conclusion of this report then?

“Why impose such soul-destroying double standards upon us? Why the government can choose not to believe but we are not allowed to refute the conclusion of that report?” the family said.

“If this is really being played out, isn’t then the creation of the RCI merely a waste of time and public funds as well as taking the grieving family members for a ride?” they added.

Beng Hock was political secretary to Seri Kembangan assemblyman Ean Yong Hian Wah, and he was found dead on July 16, 2009 on the fifth-floor external corridor of Selangor MACC’s office in Shah Alam after a marathon questioning overnight.

The government set up the RCI in January this year after the coroner delivered an “open verdict” ruling out both suicide and homicide.

The royal panel found that Teoh had been driven to suicide after harsh, relentless questioning by MACC officers.

But while the RCI was in session, a second person fell to his death while under the MACC’s care.

Senior Customs officer Ahmad Sarbaini Mohamed was found dead on a badminton court on the first floor of the MACC building in Cheras on April 6, after purportedly returning to amend his previous testimony as a witness.