Teoh questioner watched porn

RCI chairman makes a startling revelation about a MACC officer’s misbehaviour.

KUALA LUMPUR: One of Teoh Beng Hock’s interrogators watched pornography on his office computer after he had finished a questioning session with the late political aide whose death is the subject of current investigations by a Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI).

The startling revelation was made today by the RCI’s chairman, James Foong, when the commission was hearing the testimony of Hishamuddin Hashim, the deputy director of the Selangor Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC).

Foong said MACC officer Mohd Ashraf Mohd Yunus watched pornography at 1.20am on July 16, 2009, while other officers were questioning Teoh.

He did not say how the RCI got the information, but it was reported recently that the panel had instructed a private investigator to confiscate computers used by MACC officers directly involved in questioning Teoh.

July 16 was the day Teoh was found dead at Plaza Masalam, a building in Shah Alam that houses the Selangor MACC office.

Teoh was questioned in a MACC investigation into alleged misuse of funds by his boss, Selangor state executive councillor Ean Yong Hian Wah.

Foong asked if Hishamuddin was aware of his officers’ movements on the night of Teoh’s death. Hishamuddin replied that he would not know what his officers were doing unless he asked them personally.

Foong: Were you aware that Ashraf (photo, during his testimony at RCI), at 1.20 on July 16, while the operation was going on that night, he was watching pornography on a website?

Hishamuddin (after some hesitation): This is beyond my authority. It is not work related. It is self-initiated.

Foong: If your officers were on duty and were on their way to collect documents and they stopped and robbed a place…

To this, Hishamuddin shook his head and repeated that it was beyond his authority.

Hishamuddin: If it happened in front of me, I would have reprimanded them. That day I had more important work to be done.

Foong expressed his surprise that officers could watch pornography in the office while operations were ongoing and when there is a government order against watching pornography in government offices.

Teoh was found dead after his overnight interrogation by MACC officers at their office in Shah Alam.

His body was found on the fifth floor of Plaza Masalam, the same building that housed the MACC office on the 14th floor.

The inquiry currently in session is looking into Teoh’s death and MACC’s interrogation methods. It was formed after an inquest had previously failed to determine Teoh’s cause of death. - FMT