Bar Council “disappointed” at MACC submissions’ postponement

May 25, 2011

KUALA LUMPUR, May 25 — The Bar Council has expressed its disappointment with the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC)’s “last-minute” request today to postpone its submissions to the Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) investigating Teoh Beng Hock’s death.

Bar Council lawyer Christopher Leong said the commission had stipulated that the Bar Council, the MACC and the conducting officers from the Attorney-General’s Chambers hand in their submissions today.

“We are disappointed ... at this last-minute turn of events,” Leong told The Malaysian Insider today.

“We worked round the clock to comply with the direction and we expected him to do the same,” he added, referring to MACC lawyer Datuk Seri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah.

Leong said the RCI granted the MACC an extension till this Friday while the Bar Council and the conducting officers filed their submissions today.

When contacted, Shafee said he was currently in Europe on official business with the Asean Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR).

“So the preparation of my submissions ... takes a bit more time,” said Shafee, who is Malaysia’s representative to the AICHR.

Shafee said he has been in Europe since last Sunday and will return next Wednesday.

The RCI heard testimony from 70 witnesses in its bid to unravel the mysterious circumstances behind Teoh’s death.

The 30-year-old DAP political aide was found dead on July 16, 2009 on the fifth-floor corridor of Plaza Masalam in Shah Alam after he was questioned overnight by MACC officers at their then Selangor headquarters on the 14th floor.

The RCI is to submit its report to the Yang di-Pertuan Agong by June 24.

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