The Pakatan Harapan government announced on Wednesday that it agreed to reopen the cases of Mongolian woman Altantuya Shaariibuu and Teoh Beng Hock, two highly controversial cases during the previous BN administration.
The killing of Altantuya took place in 2006 while Teoh Beng Hock was found falling to his death in 2009. Former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak’s name was implicated in the Altantuya’s case, giving it a thick and suspenseful political hue, while Teoh, then the aide of Selangor state exco Ean Yong Hian Wah, fell to his death from the MACC head office building while being interrogated by anti-corruption officials.
Due to the presumably political nature of the two cases, the trial procedures and verdicts were understandably unacceptable and unconvincing to many. For the past so many years, many have hoped for the reopening of these cases once Pakatan Harapan takes over the federal administration.
As many have wished, the Pakatan Harapan government led by Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad has decided to re-investigate the two cases, giving the families of Altantuya and Teoh renewed hopes that the truth will be uncovered one day, while allowing the national institution to decide whether the handling of the two cases back in those years was fair and just.
These two cases have touched the hearts of many Malaysians who believe they were typical representation of political intervention in criminal cases. As a result, the suspense still lingers on until this day, years after the end of court hearings. It is hoped that the re-trial of these cases will offer more acceptable explanations to the victims’ grief-stricken families.
There might be a number of possibilities following the reopening of these two cases, and all parties must view all the legal proceedings, procedures and developments from more rational perspectives and allow the relevant authorities to take the necessary time to re-investigate and trial instead of disrupting the proceedings as per their own preoccupation.
Meanwhile, the relevant authorities must manifest a high degree of professionalism, impartiality and transparency in handling the cases so that all the doubts arising from previous trials could be answered and solved.
Hopefully new evidences that were intentionally omitted during the earlier trials could find their way back to the court so that truths that were covered up and could potentially derail the outcome of the trials would be laid bare before us once again.
Those guilty of the crimes must be held accountable, and Malaysians must be made to believe that these cases will be completely free from political intervention.
Reopening the cases helps the Malaysian government restore its tarnished international reputation in its previous mishandling of these cases.
Whatever the outcome, doubts hovering over us for so many years have to be lifted, and the families of Altantuya and Teoh Beng Hock have every right to know the truth.
– Mysinchew
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