By Clara Chooi
The Malaysian Insider
Apr 08, 2011
KUCHING, April 8 — DAP accused Datuk Seri Najib Razak today of siding with the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) in the recent death of a Customs officer under its probe, casting doubt on the prime minister’s pledge of a thorough investigation into the incident.
Party advisor Lim Kit Siang said Najib should have abstained from giving his own evaluation of the circumstances surrounding Selangor Customs assistant director Ahmad Sarbani Mohamed’s death on Wednesday as it gave the impression that he was taking the side of the graftbusting agency.
“Najib claimed Sarbani’s case was different from Teoh Beng Hock’s as he was not being questioned at the time of his death.
“Najib said that Sarbani went to the MACC’s office voluntarily to change his statement and thereon, died in the blink of an eye,” he told a press conference at DAP’s city headquarters here today.
Lim was referring to Najib’s statement to reporters here yesterday, in which the prime minister explained his understanding of the circumstances prior to Sarbani’s death.
Najib had said that while the incident has similarities to Teoh’s death two years ago, the situations were different as Sarbani was not at the time being questioned by the MACC.
“From I have been told, he (Sarbani) had gone to the MACC office voluntarily to change his statement. When the MACC officer left him to get their statement, that’s when it happened.
Najib said the circumstances in Teoh and Sarbani’s deaths had been different.“It happened in the blink of an eye,” Najib told reporters after attending a function at SMK Santubong. “This is different from Teoh Beng Hock as the officer was not being questioned.”
“How can he take the MACC’s explanation as an official version? If he said there will be a full and thorough investigation, he should just leave it be.
“Sarbani’s family and friends said he had been called in. He was playing tennis the day before, too. But MACC said they did not call him.
“So are we now saying that Sarbani went himself to the MACC office, only to jump off the building on his own?” Lim questioned.
Sarbani was found dead on the ground outside the MACC’s office in Jalan Cochrane here at about 10.20am on Wednesday, where he is believed to have fallen out of the building’s third-floor window.
His death comes as a Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) is investigating MACC operational procedures and the death of DAP political aide Teoh on July 16, 2009 after a coroner’s inquest returned an open verdict of neither suicide nor homicide.
Today, Lim said based on Najib’s statement and the experience from Teoh’s case, it was doubtful the authorities would conduct a full and transparent investigation on Sarbani’s death.
“Something is very wrong with our system of governance. Najib’s alphabet soup of policies — his NKRA, NEM, GTP, ETP — do not hide the fact that the system of governance in Malaysia is just getting worse,” he said.
He added that the MACC had been formed following the public’s declining confidence in the former graftbusting agency, the Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA).
“The MACC was supposed to have more power, funds and personnel to wipe out corruption but in just two years, public confidence in the MACC became even worse than it was when we had the ACA.
“We have Teoh’s case, now Sarbani’s case and the fact that the Teoh RCI revealed that MACC officers watch porn during important interrogations,” he said.
Lim pointed out that the MACC was also clearly biased towards the ruling Barisan Nasional administration as it had failed to open investigations on a series of corruption allegations made against Sarawak Chief Minister Tan Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud.
“If the allegations are made against Pakatan Rakyat politicians, the MACC would have files and cupboards full of reports. But nothing was done on Taib,” he said.
Lim also called for the formation of an RCI to look into claims Taib, through his “corrupt” regime, had plundered the state’s natural resources over the past three decades of his rule.
“Explain why is it that such a rich state is now one of the poorest in the country and yet in the meantime, Taib has become one of the world’s richest men,” he said.
He added that such a probe would be in the interest of not only Malaysians but the world.
///Najib had said that while the incident has similarities to Teoh’s death two years ago, the situations were different as Sarbani was not at the time being questioned by the MACC.///
There are other differences too. TBH fell legs down whereas Ahmad Sarbarni head down. TBH fell from the 14 th floor whereas Sarbarni from the third. TBH suffered pre-fall injuries whereas in the blink of an eye, there was not time to inflict injuries on Sarbarni. Sarbarni was the suspect but TBH was a witness. With all the differences is it necessary that the conclusion of cause of death be different , one suicide and another homicide. If not, what was Najib trying to imply?
This spoilt brat is no longer human in nature anymore.
It all started on the day when his hand are tainted with mongolian blood.
There’s no return for him for he’s already bound for hell.
All we need to do is to bring BN down this 13GE and justice will follow automatically.
There was nothing to hide from MACC for TBH because he is clean through & through. They brutally handled him to force a confession and in the course has murdered him in cold blood.
For Sarbarni, he knew too much that “they” have to “silent” him for good quickly before he leaks out damaging information on “people”. MACC is taking instruction from these “people”. WHO ARE THEY??????
Yes, so obvious – Sarbarni posed a threat to ‘them’ . He probably knew too much and their agent at macc had to act fast, no?
Najib should stay out of it but he is not, why?
As for the Sarawak CM, Taib!
He, too is a goner for now.
Using lots of bomoh to play hocus pocus, thinking that it’ll help him to win in this election.
With 2012 coming our way, whatever mumbo jumbo his gang of bomoh chant will only hasten his departure to the dark side.
Wrong time for summoning the “dead” as our world is now in the process of metamorphosis.
MACC is responsible for this death too. It is their duty to safeguard those they interrogate. No cover-up please!
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correction
http://shiokguy.blogspot.com/2011/04/aib-jangan-bebankan-rakyat-sarawak.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ShiokGuysOpinion+%28Shiok+Guy%27s+Opinion%29
These bloody fools must have a single storey office block.
Trouble lies ahead for najis as his very own men will betray and double cross him this 13th GE.
With all the guilt and evil which he was involved in, it’s just a matter of time that many will “stab” him in exchange for immunity when PR gains power.
Many of his gang knew very well that it’s “game over” for them, mainly because of that fat mama, which is the real cause of trouble.
If Najis wanted to be Najib, he would have taken control of fat mama earlier but too bad that things seem to go the wrong way.
With big fat mama doing all the “finger pointing ” here and there, Najib is no more a Najib but a real Najis instead.
///…Najib claimed Sarbani’s case was different from Teoh Beng Hock’s as he was not being questioned at the time of his death…///
In first place TBH was also not questioned (in sense under interrogation) at time of his death. The questioning of TBH ended near to 4 am and his death more than 3 hours. So what the difference here meant is really that TBH was called in for questioning whereas Sarbani (according to MACC’s version – disputed by Sarbani’s friends) went to MACC on his own accord which Najib appears to reiterate and give the official endorsement.
But even if MACC’s version were correct – that Sarbani went on his own accord- what’s the significance or implication of this difference (on why they were in MACC building) against the following important similarities/patterns of both cases:-
• That both TBH & Sarbani went into MACC’s offices through the front door alive and exited from their windows dead?
• That both being inside MACC’s precincts were under the dominion of MACC who was responsible for their personal safety
• That neither death could remotely be attributable to suicide ???
///Lim also called for the formation of an RCI to look into claims Taib, through his “corrupt” regime, had plundered the state’s natural resources over the past three decades of his rule./// However Nazri is more interested in calling an RCI on the sex video (but not Altantuya, PKFZ or claims against Taib), whilst Karpal is against it.
Is there an objective criteria why an RCI ought to be called for one case and not another in view of public money being used to und such an enquiry? Problem here is that there is none. The Commissions of Enquiry Act sets the objective criteria of “public welfare” but no one could pin down what is meaning of “public welfare” (which is distinct from public interest) in objective sense based on defined principles.
Judging from the types of RCI(s) commissioned so far, the criteria of what is public welfare is more akin to calculations of political welfare & fallout of the party/coalition that requires or rejects such a public enquiry (at public expense).
#1 More differences, according to jib–
TBH was slim, Sarbani plump
TBH investigated for RM2,400 but Sarbani for RM1billion
TBH was a pendatang, Sarbani was not
TBH had a longer way to fall than Sarbani
TBH’s demise did not force macc to place its interrogation on the ground floor; Sarbani’s did.
TBH’s interrogators watched porn in between tormenting him, Sarbani’s watched porn in without tormenting him
Simple. It was suicide. Jumping off a high place cum self-strangulation.
So next time question your witnesses under a tree, macc. And have them hand-cuffed. Dont forget that.
DPM: Why ‘change’ when BN can ‘transform’
————————————-
You’ve shown your true colours recently and we’re indeed desperate for a “change”!
We don’t really want any “transform” ‘cos Umno is already a “monster”.
We also knew that you’re too desperate and in the midst of “transformation” as well and we need not have to wait for the time for you to’ve fully grown horns on top of your head.
Najib’s headache is that as PM he heads MACC, and as Finance Minister, the Customs. Both institutions are now pitched against one another: MACC accuses customs officers of having millions in their account (not to mention over a billion RM in unpaid taxes), and Customs, MACC of (impliedly) foul play in Sarbani’s death, in the wake of TBH. That the institutions are so tainted with allegations of corruption and counter allegations of power is not surprising considering the political culture evolving since independence – communal politics of patronage.
On question of why ‘change’ when BN can ‘transform’ (DPM), how has BN transformed? Najib tried tentative steps via a series of financial liberalization initiatives to whittle down the NEP but has been made to backtrack, with his 1 Malaysia ended a butt of jokes. What is very much alive and kicking is traditional feudal communal politics of patronage, which for so long as it subsists, corruption will expand than contract.
To cover up contradictions, efforts at hypocrisy must be doubled up. So now there’s new dimension – holier than thou sexual approach to politics. Everyone pretends he has sexual morality of either a celibate priest or a faithful husband and although they say those who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones, tries to bring down the other’s side by exposing or conjuring sexual scandals, bringing politics to a gutter level.
Those who have vested interests in the present political set up would lament and blame former premier (Pak Lah) for opening the pandora box in setting a benchmark (by at least talk) a cleaner and more transparent political culture by empowering anti corruption institution by institutionalizing MACC. Such standards set are way above the reality and felt experience on the ground. For institutions cannot so easily change culture. It is culture that changes and discredit these institutions instead leading the Customs on a collision course with the other institution, MACC, both under purview of the PM, which means that if he backs one he will alienate the other – a dilemma – and if he goes against both or otherwise recoils from doing nothing to either, it is even worse. If one tries pretending to be something other than what he really is or is used to, one’s troubles will be doubled by such contradictions.
Customs department is the most convenient place to do you help me I help you later, even after your retire perhaps.
Now MACC can also be a convenient place to ‘help each other” Given a share of your easy money, and your problems such was live witness can be made to disappear.
Government service was a means for NEP success. It used to be only helps given int he form of salary and wages. Since the advent of APs with Mamakthir’s declaration that NEP needed to produce Malay millionaires, government regulations facilitate creation of Malay millionaires. Anti-corruption is anti-NEP of UMNO’s affirmative actions.
MACC and Customs can indeed work hand-in-hand, like they help each other.
Now the corrupt customs is trying to get some political support from UMNO to close their investigations, citing allegiance to UMNO. “You help me, I help you”
Blardy NR, RM n MACC – their hands r soaked with blood of witnesses who mati
MACC shld hv CCTV in their buildings, windows with grills, n stop their officers fr watching p0rn0 24/7 n got blinded fr constant 0r gasm n master bedtion in their offices
Suicide, my foot! Y would a billionaire jump 2 death? Can employ d best lawyers mah
Blardi liar Moo said Y UBAH when can transform – he can’t even transform 2 1M’sian while he insisted he is Malay 1st, M’sian last; so S’wak voters must UBAH, serious
2NR n RM: Y NO set up an RCI 2 investigate C4 bombing of d Mongolian beauty?
Interrogating suspects at the MACC ground floor is not safe. Next time the suspect will be gunned down instead of being pushed out of the window.
The safest way for MACC to interrogate suspects is through video communication which is legally accepted in this country.
BN has just created a MONSTER!
Except in MACC all exchange of helps could be carried out cordially where each gets his needs, in other government departments. Only government revenue suffers.
MACC personnel are being constantly tested to resist jealousy against those who are brought before them, other than the cases involving opposition parties which were political witch-hunt. But jealousy has been a culture promoted by the government, as proven by the justification to carry out NEP forever. Maybe MACC is alien to the culture of Malaysia.