It is downright scandalous and outrageous – the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) taking three times longer than the Teoh Beng Hock (TBH) Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) to conduct its internal probe into the RCI findings on the criminal transgressions of MACC officers resulting in Teoh’s death at MACC headquarters in Shah Alam on July 16, 2009.
And what is the outcome of such MACC internal probe? To decide on the disciplinary action to be taken against the three MACC officers whose “aggressive, relentless, oppressive and unscrupulous interrogation” had “driven” Teoh “to commit suicide”!
The MACC chief commissioner Datuk Seri Abu Kassim Mohamed said today that the MACC would first make its recommendations to its complaints committee before meting out appropriate disciplinary action against the trio.
The message is very simple and crystal clear – the Najib administration and the MACC are just not serious in wanting to bring Teoh’s killers to justice!
The TBH RCI took less than four months to conduct public hearings and finalise its report, holding its first public hearing on 24th February 2011 while submitting its report on 22nd June 2011. The 124-page TBH RCI report was made public on July 21, 2011.
The RCI was formed after public uproar over the “Open verdict” of an inquest 18 months’ after the tragedy of Teoh’s death.
When the TBH RCI report was made public, MACC announced that it accepted with an open heart the findings of the RCI on the death of Teoh Beng Hock and pledged that appropriate action would be taken on RCI findings and recommendations.
When there was no action against any MACC officer, this led to another nation-wide outrage resulting in MACC succumbing 48 hours later to public pressure suspending three MACC officers named by the RCI as responsible for Teoh’s death from further investigation duties pending an internal probe.
What is needed now is an independent inquiry as to why the MACC has taken three times longer than the TBH RCI and has still not been able to complete its internal probe into the RCI findings with regard to the MACC officers who must be held responsible for Teoh’s death.
If MACC has really accepted the RCI findings and recommendations, have all the MACC officers concerned who had acted with impunity in utter disregard of the law resulting in the death of Teoh Beng Hock, and then conspired to cover up the truth and commit the crime of perjury both at the TBH Inquest and at the Royal Commission of Inquiry public hearings with false evidence, been charged in court for various crimes, including the murder of Teoh Beng Hock?
On the approach of Teoh’s third death anniversary, let the Prime Minister and the Cabinet not only answer the above question but also declare whether the MACC or the Government are prepared to publicly accept responsibility for causing the death of Teoh Beng Hock and make a generous ex-gratia compensation payment to TBH’s family, among other things, to minimise the family’s sufferings and to facilitate a closure of the tragedy?
///why the MACC has taken three times longer than the TBH RCI and has still not been able to complete its internal probe into the RCI findings with regard to the MACC officers who must be held responsible for Teoh’s death….///
They just hope that people will forget all about Teoh’s death as time passes by.
Those who lived by the swords shall perish by the swords. Those murderers shall perish by the same way they perished others. Only 10 times worse.
Government accepting responsibility and making ex-gratia payment is one thing, those responsible for TBH’s death should be punished and dismissed from service.
There are 2 problems here. The first is how can we reasonably expect MACC to investigate and discipline its own? MACC like police has esprit de corp, a morale to protect its own! Surely everyone knows that! The second problem is we are treading on soft ground to try hold MACC accountable based on RCI’s verdict of “aggressive, relentless, oppressive and unscrupulous interrogation” on the part of 3 MACC officers. In the first place can such verdict delivers closure? The salient point about the RCI’s verdict is “suicide”. This implies the 3 did not deliver physical harm to TBH. If at all it was psychological/mental harm driving him to suicide. Whilst the 3 MACC cannot be exonerated in entirety, the fact that RCI verdict is accepted – if it were accepted (which I don’t)- will provide the excuse to mitigate much of their culpability and justify they be let off with a slap on the wrist…
Continuation from preceding comment: For they will say, lets be realistic if their interrogation methods were not aggressive, relentless, and oppressive how could they be expected to catch the Corrupt? They will say that they could not forsee TBH’s fragile pre-existing vulnerable psychological /emotional state; that others of normal fortitude subject to such relentless interrogation do not commit suicide. Although they are still responsble they wuill argue that their responsbility is diminished as they cannot be held responsble all the way to take extraordinary precautions to protect the abnormally vulnerable who under stress resort to suicide!
Can we trust the RCI, or rather can we trust that the RCI did come out with the report without fear or favour? I doubt.
///A small group ignores the Kolej Tunku Abdul Rahman guideline to wear red, the official colour of the college.///
have Malaysians lost their right to choose the colour of the attire, if they are not required to wear uniform?
I add : Can a “generous ex-gratia compensation payment to TBH’s family” though admittedly going a distance to minimise his family’s sufferings, facilitate a closure of the tragedy when the ex-gratia compensation – and for that matter any kind of discipline meted out to the three- be based on the controversial premise of TBH relenting to the trio’s “aggressive, relentless, oppressive and unscrupulous interrogation” and committing suicide? I’d like to ask how can it bring closure for the family to concede that TBH committed suicide????
///Can we trust the RCI, or rather can we trust that the RCI did come out with the report without fear or favour? I doubt./// – Loh.
If we cannot trust the 2nd “independent inquiry as to why the MACC has taken three times longer than the TBH RCI”, then, is there an added reason why we have to trust the first TBH RCI’s suicide verdict and use it as a basis to urge another 2nd independent enquiry???
Visa versa, if we do not trust the first TBH RCI’s suicide verdict then as Loh said there’s no reason to trust the second “independent” one as “to why the MACC has taken three times longer than the TBH RCI”, to propose it to accelerate closure.
MACC is too busy chasing PR shadows and ghosts. They need all their manpower even if these are ruthless, unreliable ones.
Who really oversee MACC to ensure that they act without fear or favour and in a timely manner? As it stands, MACC is just another institution that is untouchable. They can do no wrong and even if they did wrong, so what?
Who really oversee MACC to ensure that they act without fear or favour and in a timely manner?
Looks like we won’t see any progress on Cowgate till 2020, if at all.
More importantly, what will the new incoming PR government do to address and straighten out all these shenanigans?
This issue shall never be faded away. I feel that DAP and PR are not relentless in their pursue to seek justice for TBH. They must be persistent, not on and off or when the occasions warrant it. Which small time politician suffered death while under MACC’s custody if not TBH? If someone jumps out of your office window, the police will probably make you sit on ice to get to the bottom of it. But if it is from MACC building, it is one moronic inquiry after another as if no one is responsible. Make them sit on ice, I am sure the truth will prevail very fast.
Let’s ask ourselves, frankly:
Who hasn’t felt short-changed by Ah Jib Gor
with that short-circuited RCI?
aiyah, Y bother 2 dig in2 OLD issue, oredi 3years old, FORGET abt it n MOVE ON lah mah so said por no president; no C meh, KTAR students in red expressed their undying luv 2 ahCHEATkor, who felt like an ageing rock star
WHO said $$$$ cannot buy luv?
///Make them sit on ice, I am sure the truth will prevail very fast./// – Lim Kam Put.
What he means is to apply the same “aggressive, relentless, oppressive and unscrupulous interrogation” on the 3 culprits whose “aggressive, relentless, oppressive and unscrupulous interrogation” method as described by TBH RCI is the subject matter of, and justification for the pursuit of further/speedier investigation and enquiry by Saudara Kit here. Maybe with such “aggressive, relentless, oppressive and unscrupulous interrogation” someone may own up that something more than just “aggressive, relentless, oppressive and unscrupulous interrogation” and ensuing mental psychological harm was inflicted on TBH.
Jeffrey, you still don’t get it. Did the police or any authority really have a real investigation on this case when it first happened? Stop your mental masturbation here, no one is interested.
Booooooooooooooooo!
Yup. Its “boo” and that fyi is the shorter form of “ABU”.
Lim Kam Put, What is it that I don’t get? On your statement “Did the police or any authority really have a real investigation on this case when it first happened”, well I don’t recall anyone here least of all me who has suggested that the police have had a real investigation. However isn’t your reference to making someone sit on ice normally considered a 3rd degree method of investigation (admittedly more effective to breaking down hard core criminals than mere verbal questioning) considered part of the very “aggressive, relentless, oppressive and unscrupulous interrogation” which has been ascribed by TBH RCI to the MACC trio (that our Saudara Kit proposes a 2nd independent enquiry to look into)?
They are going to do a Altantuya-type arrangement. Find 3 poor indons who could look like the 3 MACC goons. Make sure they attend court and hearings with their faces covered. You want jail time, they will get jail time – maybe a year, maybe less, and the 3 imposters will be handsomely rewarded upon release.
I suppose Limkamput meant that had the police really conducted investigation, properly, they would have got the murder suspects and there would not be a need for the RCI. Without the RCI, TBH would not be branded as having committed suicide, never mind who caused it.
There are many murder cases, and TBH had to be presumed murdered to anything else. What did the police find? The body could not have landed so far away from the wall when the window restricted lateral jump. It was clear that the body was thrown out, and it coincided with the finding that the body could find its position assumed it was a rigid body. A unconscious body is rigid saved for the arms and legs swinging.
Pornthip, the pathologist from Thailand who has conducted findings on more cases of death from falls than any other pathologists in the world concluded that it is most probable TBH was murdered. TBH fell while he was unconscious. Could TBH walked up the window and jumped while he was unconscious? Besides, had TBH wanted to stop suffering during the interrogation, he should have jumped out of the window in front of his his slave-masters. It makes no sense that he chose the moment after he had smarted all the pains to end his life. RCI are learned members; except we do not know what they had learnt. Of course the RCI is anything but R.
Najib administration like the pak lah’s administration before it is ‘kaput-cino’. They are tasteless and you just want to puke and spit them all out.