By Debra Chong
The Malaysian Insider
Oct 27, 2011
KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 27 — Teoh Beng Hock’s family accused the Najib administration of “taking grieving family members for a ride” by not pushing for criminal charges against three national graftbusters despite a royal investigation panel finding the trio contributed to the political aide’s death two years ago.
The Teohs said the government’s inaction casts serious doubt not only on the credibility of the Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) the prime minister foisted on the family, but its chairman, Federal Court judge Tan Sri Datuk Seri James Foong Cheng Yuen.
“What we do not understand is until today, why the government still thinks the RCI report does not carry enough evidence for commencing action against these officers who have abused their power, but spends more public funds to conduct another round of investigation?” the dead DAP aide’s family questioned in an email statement to The Malaysian Insider.
“We want to know then, on what basis that we, the grieving family members of the deceased, were asked to accept the findings stated in the RCI report, that Beng Hock died of forced suicide?” they asked.
The still-grieving family was responding to de facto law minister Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz’s statement three days ago that the government would not be prosecuting the three officers from the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) despite being named in the RCI report released three months ago because no one had filed a police report to do so.
The Teohs said they found it incredulous the government remained suspicious and sceptical of the RCI report and left it to the MACC to head another “special task force investigating their own officers”.
They pointed out the RCI had incriminated the MACC trio in its report for using inappropriate violence to draw information out of Beng Hock who was only a witness.
The family further noted the RCI had named the MACC men as investigation officer Mohd Anuar Isamil (“the bully”); assistant investigation officer Mohd Ashraf Mohd Yunus (“the abuser”); and former deputy director of its Selangor branch Hishammuddin Hashim (“the arrogant leader”).
“If Nazri himself does not accept the findings of this report, why are we requested to accept the conclusion of this report then?
“Why impose such soul-destroying double standards upon us? Why the government can choose not to believe but we are not allowed to refute the conclusion of that report?” the family said.
“If this is really being played out, isn’t then the creation of the RCI merely a waste of time and public funds as well as taking the grieving family members for a ride?” they added.
Beng Hock was political secretary to Seri Kembangan assemblyman Ean Yong Hian Wah, and he was found dead on July 16, 2009 on the fifth-floor external corridor of Selangor MACC’s office in Shah Alam after a marathon questioning overnight.
The government set up the RCI in January this year after the coroner delivered an “open verdict” ruling out both suicide and homicide.
The royal panel found that Teoh had been driven to suicide after harsh, relentless questioning by MACC officers.
But while the RCI was in session, a second person fell to his death while under the MACC’s care.
Senior Customs officer Ahmad Sarbaini Mohamed was found dead on a badminton court on the first floor of the MACC building in Cheras on April 6, after purportedly returning to amend his previous testimony as a witness.
The MACC trio are not charged because Najib is afraid of losing voter support come GE13.
If the trio are not charged, then Najib can boast of his flawless and perfect administration.
All the investigations are for academic and case study. Every time something go wrong we have this and that task force some is supper task etc to investigate and thing like that.
so more files open after the Auditor General Report. But do people really believe in those investigations? What ever result that may be no actions for sure will be taken. If you don’t believe then wait for next AG report.
BN can’t or rather CSL can’t really ask the people be less hateful. Who want to be hateful, it is BN own doings that make the people hate you.
NFA.
Criminals can’t charge criminals.
The Govt’s refusal to press charges against the three MACC offficers accused in the RCI as having been directly involved in TBH’s death reflects badly on the Govt. It smacks of a cover up no matter what lame excuses that the AG can come up with.
A most generous assumption is that the Govt is afraid that by charging the officers in court it would lose votes.
But a more sinister suspicion is that the Govt simply cannot afford to have an open court hearing that may bare the real truth i.e. that those who walked in the corridors of power were involved in this as yet unsatisfactorily explained death.
The very nature of the circumstances leading to TBH’s mysterious fall and the subsequent suspicious cover up attempts seems to support this theory. Firstly, there was the much publicly hyped boasting by BN/UMNO that they will recapture Selangor by all means possible. This was followed by the MACC blitz on the PKR politicians’ supposedly corrupted activities while ignoring the more obvious evidence of RM24m villas of UMNO leaders. Next was the delaying tactics by the Govt to hold an enquiry proposing first an inquest (and when that failed to convince the public) then only reluctantly agreeing to an RCI after intense public pressure. The farce that was the inquest served to further increase the public’s suspicion that powerful forces are trying to avoid the truth from being revealed. Then the RCI that followed too raised more questions than answers. But there were evidence revealed during the inquest suggesting that some of the MACC officers were acting in collusion with the wishes of certain political leaders seeking to topple the Selangor PR Govt.
Under this cloud of suspicion, it is of no surprise that no action will be taken against the three officers. The only way for the truth to emerge will be a change in Govt that will go after the real truth or a miracle happens and one of the officers repents and reveal the truth.
It is a uphill and basically wrong strategy for TBH’s family to request the govt to bring criminal proceedings against the errent MACC trio based on the Foong RCI’s findings of their abusing power by aggressive interrogation methods. One should not ask for criminal action to be taken based on a report’s findings of aggressive interrogation when one finds the very core finding of the report of TBH’s suicide is unacceptable! The two reasons for this are (i) as long as aggressive interrogation outside the rules did not evince an intent by MACC’s officers to kill and had not directly resulted in the death – the death being major contributed by TBH’s alleged own lack of will or stamina to withstand the relentless pressure of interrogation resulting in suicide – there will exist this official justification in the way said by Nazri, to further investigate along inernal guidelines/rules framework and not criminal law, meaning that errant officers will be punished by displinary proceedings for violating internal interrogation rules but NOT necessarily any criminal proccedings; (ii) to ask for action based on RCI’s findings would indirectly imply acceptance of and legitimise the RCI’s suicidal finding, which is not accepted!
The other way is to apply to court and seek judicial review of Foong’s RCI finding as what TBH’s brother has done. Again the prospect for justice is not promising here because our Appellate Courts had already decided in VK Lingam’s application that RCI’s findings on Lingam clip were not reviewable, and hence by precedent will likely bind another application like that of TBH’s brother for review. So is this going to be NFA (No Further Action) as what Godfather commented in #3???
Maybe we can look at two other avenues.
First: whether the PR controlled state govt of Selangor has power and jurisdiction to institute a special enquiry committee on its own based on credible/independent people sitting to re-open enquiry of a matter of such public interest within Selangor. Please note that onSept 25th this year the Penang State Government expressed plan to set up a special inquiry committee to probe into the controversial ‘Kancil car park’ at the foot of Penang Hill. Why must such enquiry be confined to car park and not one of greater importance/governance uimplications as TBH’s controversial death within selangor?
Second : Perhaps civil society/opposition, journalists/interested parties can redirect and re-focus attention and interest in this fella Michael Leslie Squires – who has received little attention- as see what he could further elucidate. A former British ex police detective officer at Liverpool police’s CID, Michael was seconded to Hong Kong’s ICAC in 1984 to investigate corruption in public & private cases. Michael was appointed and acted as independent investigator by Foong’s RCI on TBH. Little is known of what he made in his report to RCI except the juicy part that two or three Selangor MACC officers had downloaded in their computers pornography websites for access in the wee hours of July 16, 2009. Although keeping and distributing pornography is an offence in Malaysia, it is certainly not TBH’s family’s focus to be distracted by this small & side issue of asking govt to investigate and bring criminal proceedings based on pornography. We don’t know what else was there in Michael’s report! Was there more relating to TBH’s death than what the RCI disclosed (perhaps selectively) relating to pornography??? It is hard to imagine a hotshot investigator investigating and only zero-ing and reporting on graft busters surfing porn sites!
If the truth is not found do utmost to resurrect the case (ideas as mentioned by Jeffrey) until the truth is revealed.