Suspend 5 MACC officers, says Beng Hock’s sister

She says their suspension from duty is needed so that fresh investigations can be carried out into her brother's death in 2009.

Teoh Beng Hock was found dead on a fifth-floor rooftop at the building where MACC has its headquarters in Shah Alam.

KUALA LUMPUR: The government was urged today to suspend five officers of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission implicated in the 2009 death of Teoh Beng Hock, an aide to a DAP assemblyman.

Teoh’s sister, Lee Lan, said the five officers should be suspended from duty so that fresh investigations into Beng Hock’s death could be carried out. “It is the first step in finding the truth and to know the mastermind,” she said.

Lee Lan was at the DAP headquarters here, where party secretary-general Lim Guan Eng announced that the Cabinet had given approval for Beng Hock’s case to be reopened.

She hoped that the government would implement institutional reforms to end such deaths of those taken into custody.

The Bar Council had also previously recommended that the five MACC officers be investigated for culpable homicide.

Following the Cabinet decision, it is now up to the Attorney-General, Tommy Thomas, to decide whether to send the case file back to the police for fresh investigations to be carried out.

Beng Hock was found dead on a fifth-floor rooftop at the building where MACC has its headquarters in Shah Alam on the morning of July 16, 2009. He had been taken in by MACC the previous day and held overnight on the 14th floor MACC offices for questioning into alleged fraudulent disbursement of constituency allocations.

Teoh was an aide to Ean Yong Hian Wah, assemblyman for Seri Kembangan, at the time. -FMT